After Installation of Monterey no more EPS previews

[nicolea54182876]

Hi there,

After the installation of Monterey all EPS are without preview... What can I do

[susanr97390151]

It's worked for all our office macs without a hitch.

[roosv17154405]

Hello! I discovered how to see the preview of files with the extension .eps. Just change the name.eps to name.ai 🙂 I hope to have helped you!

[Monika Gause]

Changing .eps filenames to .ai helps a lot and works seamless.

By @100pk

Well, no.

When you change the filename of the EPS rto AI, that changes nothing whatsoever for InDesign. InDesign will then still place the problematic EPS.

The thing is: Illustrator saves 2 files in one: EPS and AI. Depending on where you use/open/place it, either the EPS or the AI part will be used. InDesign doesn't understand what an AI file is, so it will use the EPS and might get in trouble (most probably while exporting your final PDF for printing, because bad things always happen when you need them least).

Same goes for PDF. Please check out my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpDh8Y7q8yE

[100pk]

If you save an Illustrator .ai with pdf-compatability InDesign seamlessly imports them. Try it.

[mdjett69]

Seriously not helpful. Graphic Designers use these all thie time and have hundreds of them.

[Monika Gause]

Seriously not helpful. Graphic Designers use these all thie time and have hundreds of them.

By @mdjett69

You should report that to Apple.

[Monika Gause]

According to: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253307271

This is caused by:

macOS Monterey is missing the generator needed to do this. It used to be in `/System/Library/Quicklook` as `EPS.qlgenerator`. Sadly, you can't just copy it over from an existing Catalina installation (I don't have a BigSur handy to try that), as that keeps crashing. Btw. you'd have to put it into `~/Library/Quicklook` as `/System` is not writeable anymore.

I can only assume that Apple had some issues with the generator and thus removed it.

[francescob16445253 · Accepted solution]

I found this working solution on Apple forum.
I tested it and it works great. Please pay attention to copy modfied qlgenerator in Library/QuickLook, NOT in System/Library/QuickLook

1. Copy the "Illustrator.qlgenerator" from "/System/Library/QuickLook" to your desktop or any other folder you have read/write access to.
2. Open "Illustrator.qlgenerator" by right clicking it and select "Show package contents".
3. Open "Info.plist" in the "Contents" folder with a text editor.
4. Find the line "<string>com.adobe.illustrator.ai-image</string>"
5. Insert "<string>com.adobe.encapsulated-postscript</string>" below it with the same indentation and save the "Info.plist" file.
6. Copy "Illustrator.qlgenerator" to "/Library/QuickLook"

If you did everything right, you should now have .EPS previews back again. That's a workaround until apple fixes it in the System/Library, hopefully soon.

[mikefasnyc]

This worked. Thanks for posting!

[marcoc44119771]

Worked and now i can see .eps icon preview but NOT .ai icon preview

[nicolea54182876]

Thanks a lot. It works!

[mikefasnyc]

Hi, have you noticed your machine freezing up after you made this change? 

[francescob16445253]

I ma using this solution since two days and I didn't notice any freezing. Did you have a look at the Console?

[mikefasnyc]

Thanks for replying. I did and it showed QuickLookSatellite as the culprit for numerous crashes. This is why I was asking. After removing, all was good. Perhaps I have a corrupt file that was crashing this process.

[Pulsontwerp]

This worked! Thanks alot!

[mikek59134204]

I've made it all the way to copy the illustrator.qlgenerator back into the Library folder. will not let me? I've tried safe mode, unlocking folders nothing works???

[jfraze]

Did you see the note above? ("Please pay attention to copy modified qlgenerator in Library/QuickLook, NOT in System/Library/QuickLook") That might be the problem?

[oliverwilke]

Hi there, I am also trying to implement this workaround or whatever it is.
Unfortunately I'm already out of luck right at the beginning. My "/System/Library/QuickLook" folder in Monterrey is completely empty, no hidden files either.
Am I doing something completely wrong here or missing something from the description?
Thanks for any advice!

[oliverwilke]

I just found yet another workaround solution in case anyone is interested.
It's a plugin originally created for MacOS 15 but it seems to work on Monterrey, too.
No guarantee, of course. I'm in no way a coding guy either, so if you check it and find anything totally not cool in there, please let me/us know. Thanks.

I found it via quicklookplugins.com: https://www.quicklookplugins.com/2007/12/02/eps/ 
This is the direct link to the developer: https://www.eternalstorms.at/utilities/epsqlplg/epsqlplg/download.html 

[oliverwilke]

It seems like the plugin I recommended above will show eps-file quick looks but at the other hand takes away .ai-file quick look. So it's not really an option.
Maybe it's another workaround for some of you to just use Bridge as a file viewer?

[Pulsontwerp]

There is a difference between the "/System/Library/QuickLook" and the "/Library/QuickLook" The first one should contain all the qlgenerators the second one should be empty by default.

[oliverwilke]

Thanks, but I know that. as said, /System/Library/QuickLook is completely empty and the one in my user library doesn't even exist.

[dgotschall1]

Thanks! You just saved me HOURS of randoly opening/closing EPS files looking for the correct one. 🙂

[Erik5ECA]

This worked great, thanks so much!

[Donkey Ink & Digital]

This worked for me, however the thumbnails are still not previewing:

       

Is this a separate issue, and if so, can anyone direct me to a solution to solve the thumbnail issue? 

Thanks,

J