Cant copy transform effect from appearance panel to other objects

[Isaac Smeele]

following these instructions from adobe:

Copy appearance attributes between objects

You can copy or move appearance attributes by dragging or by using the Eyedropper tool.

Copy appearance attributes by dragging

Select the object or group (or target the layer in the Layers panel) whose appearance you want to copy.

Do one of the following:

Drag the thumbnail at the top of the Appearance panel onto an object in the document window. If a thumbnail isn’t showing, choose Show Thumbnail from the panel menu.

Alt‑drag (Windows) or Option‑drag (Mac OS) the target icon in the Layers panel onto the item to which you want to copy appearance attributes.

To move appearance attributes instead of copying them, drag the target icon in the Layers panel from any item that has the desired attributes onto the item to which you want to apply it."

I have tried all these things and it wont let me drag and drop the transform effect from one object to another i just get the lite circle with a cross through it...

please help!

thanks,

isaac.

[tromboniator]

Could you please be more specific about what kind of objects you're using, and what effects you're applying, including sizes, numbers, and percentages? Also what OS and what version of Illustrator?

I'm on Mac 10.13.3 and Adobe Illustrator CC 22.1, and all these methods work fine for me.

Thanks,

Peter

[Isaac Smeele]

windows 10 illustrator 22.1 64 bit.

i am using the "transform" effect (pictured below) and i am trying to copy it to other objects paths and/or shapes

see in this example i am using the transform effect to make 5 copies of the object.

when i attempt to drag this effect on to any other object be it a path or a shape i get a circle with a cross through it.

[Monika Gause]

Your circle has a fill.

Your line has a stroke.

in order to drag that appearance you have to move it precisely onto the stroke. But then it still won't look as expected, because instead of just applying that transform effect, it will also apply the fill and remove the stroke from your line. So your line will become invisible.

[Isaac Smeele]

except i'm only dragging and copying the transform effect. no other properties of the object are being copied.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

You can't drag just the effect. You need to drag the small miniature icon in the appearance panel.

[Isaac Smeele]

Ok I see. It really doesn't make sense to have it this way. There are many situations where one would only want to apply one aspect of somethings appearance to another object, yet your only option is to transfer every single property.

anyway, thanks for clearing up this limitation.

[Isaac Smeele]

also this doesn't work even with two of the exact same object. it doesn't matter what the fill or stroke is.