Participant

Answered

Can't paste an object - will fall off the drawing area?

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
May 28, 2011
21 replies
160907 views

When I try to copy and paste a graphic into another illustrator file I get the message: "Can't paste the objects. The requested transformation would make some objects fall completely off the drawing area?" Can anybody help with this? Do I need to change a pref setting? I'm using illus cs5. Thanks!

Correct answer Schwisow

View > Guide > Clear Guides

If you select and delete guides with the direct-selection tool (white arrow), it leaves behind the top and bottom points of the guide, which are out in space. Use the selection tool (black arrow) to select and delete guides. Clearing them should fix the problem.

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Anonymous

Used to happen to me quite often. I discovered that, the artwork I'm trying to paste into the new file was way bigger in width and height than my document/artboard dimensions. Eg, I was trying to paste a 24 cmx24cm artwork on an A4 size document. So in the transform box, I changed the width and height of the artwork to 2 cmX2cm, copied the artwork and pasted it on to the artboard I was working on. Later on, I will change the artwork size to what I would need it to be. This method has been working excellently well for me. Hope this helps.

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SilenceKillsDesign

Participant

Make sure that you have nothing selected in another program or window and try copying and pasting the object again.

I ran into this problem and was going nuts, but just deselected the text that I had highlighted in a Word document and was back in action. Hope this helps y'all.

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roberta_palazzo

Participant

Same issue!

I've deleted the guides, but illustrator have not deleted the two points (of the guide) at the end of the drawing area. So weird! (illustrator bug?)

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You just used the wrong selection tool. You used direct selection. You should have used selection tool

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guytoubert

Participant

I had the same problem. I looked in my layers' palette and I had guides that were selected with the others.

So check your selections before wanting to place a your selection on another artboard.

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Studiothorn

Participant

it seems that locking guides wont do the trick. as jacob suggested if you ctrl/cmd + a, you'll have a surprise..:):)

i went mad to find out that damned guideline i got when i did ctrl+a. the only thing to do is clear guides (process not reversible unless 'undo')

p.s - to prevent this, dont group the guidelines when you work.

C

cowboy38m

Participating Frequently

Everyone...turn off or uncheck the blasted "Snap to point" under View menu.

It drove me crazy for the longest too... I am now bald! LOL

Also,

there is a button in the Artboard control bar when you are in the Artboard tool called "Move/Copy Artwork with Artboard"...

make sure that is turned off too or else anything you copy from one file will also copy the artboard; then when you paste, it gets mixed up thinking that you want to paste one artboard onto another.

...that'll cause you to pull your hair out too.

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Ross_De

Participant

this seems to be a throw back to illustrator days of old. I haven't seen it happen since illustrator 8 but it now pops up in CS5. it seems to be points that somehow make it out to the outsides of the pasteboard, eminating from guides. if you zoom right out till you can see the whole board and do a select all you will see the points usually in the middle of the board edges. delete those points and your problem will be too

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houseofgraphics

Participant

I just had this problem. You need to clear your guides. Somehow when the objects were grouped together they were grouped with a guideline.

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genever

Participant

Clearing the guides worked for me.Thank you, it has been extremely frustrating! And they were invisible - I had previously deleted them, but they were somehow still there in separate layers.

medicineheads_no

Participating Frequently

Your object may have been grouped with another object outside your view. When selecting with the Selection tool (the black arrow) you select the whole group - including the object you do not see on your screen. If you selected with the Direct selection tool (the white arrow) you only selected the object you can see, ignoring the grouping. This may be what happened.

Happy drawing