Cannot edit graphs or charts in AI when pasted from Excel

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 16, 2024
3 replies
603 views

I have been having issues over the last year on my laptop. Specifically, when I try to paste a graph created in Excel into AI, I only get a single uneditable image copied. Again, I cannot edit the graph that I paste from Excel into AI, for example, I cannot change the color of the dots/icons or other elements. I can paste into PowerPoint or Word files and then edit the Excel graph, but in Illustrator, I only get a single image that does not let me edit the individual elements.

I can do so easily on my desktop, so I know it is specific to my laptop. I have tried resetting preferences in AI. I have tried reinstalling AI. Nothing fixes this issue.

Any advice? Has anyone experienced this before? Again, I think it is a setting in AI that is no longer letting me paste editable images from Excel. But I cannot find any information or options to let me fix this.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Save your chart as PDF or SVG from Excel. Select the chart, right-click, then select Save As Picture. Here you can save as PDF or SVG. Open this in Illustrator. You may, however, have issues with font encodings in PDF (garbled text), in which case try the SVG approach.

Caveat: Not all Excel chart styles can be saved as vector, so you might get a PDF with just an image in it.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Do you use different version of Illustrator on both those computers?

Or different versions of Ecel?

I

Ian37449830qpdqAuthor

New Participant

This problem exists if I try to paste Excel Graphs into InDesign or PhotoShop too. So it seems to be specific to Adobe products on my laptop.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

"So it seems to be specific to Adobe products"

No. It's an Excel issue. Charts will copy to the clipboard in PNG format on a Mac for outside applications (i.e. not Office). It might copy as vector objects on a PC but I cannot test that.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded