Copied text from Illustrator won't paste text into Apple Pages or Email or Preview

[default30210326gixfhq]

I'm an occasional .ai user in my company, but many others here use it as there primary worktool. It's very frustrating that I can't copy text from an ai text box and paste it into Pages or Email or Preview or Word for further editing - because Illustrator is not great for Wordsmithing! It pastes in as a picture. And I don't think it's to do with the text's formatting - but anyway, there is no way to Copy unformatted text out of Illustrator via the usual Command C shortcut. The only solution is to paste it into TextEdit and then copy it from there into other Apps. In Word (which I don't use) it is possible to Paste without Formatting but that is not an option in Pages, Email or Preview

And yet, paradoxically, I can copy out of any  and all Apps into an Illustrator text box via the usual keyboard shortcuts. 

I have tried all the permutations available under Settings/Clipboard Handling, but they make no difference.

Is this just one of those very old Adobe Illustrator foibles that never got addressed, or am I doing something wrong?

[Monika Gause]

The thing is: when you copy something in Illustrator, then Illustrator does not know what you want to do with it. And since that is the case, it assumes you want to do the obvious: keep everything in order to paste into an Illustrator file again. Illustrator been improved so that it can exchange formatted text with InDesign. 

Maybe ask Apple that they put the required paste commands into their apps?

[default30210326gixfhq]

Thanks Monika

I don't know of that many other Apps that have a dedicated Paste Special command but yes, there are some. The Copy and Paste protocol goes right back to 1984 when i got my first Mac and it's been very consistent since then. It works from and too most Apps. Maybe a better alternative would be for Adobe to provide a Copy Special option? I used to be a Freehand user back in the day and never had the problem there. Ah well, we live in hope! Luckily, I am not a heavy Illustrator user, but many in my office are. It's a terrible app for writing at any length, which is fine, so everyone writes in another app (like Word or Pages) before importing for layout. It's only when we need to get the words back into Word or Pages for rediting that we have this daft arrangement of copying into TextEdit and out again into Pages or Word. It would be a huge help to not have to do that!

[Monika Gause]

If you have a feature request, please post it here: https://illustrator.uservoice.com

Otherwise the developers will never see it.

FreeHand died 20 years ago. Its text engine was prehistoric. A lot of capabilities have been added to text engines since then. 

[brady@thecentralbranch.com]

"FreeHand died 20 years ago. Its text engine was prehistoric."... But it worked

[default30210326gixfhq]

You're right of course. Much has been improved, but it's not what's been added that's under discussion, it's what's been lost!

[brady@thecentralbranch.com]

You're not doing anything wrong - This is 100% an Abobe issue as of the last few upgrades - it's just bad programming/development that Illustrator can't decern when you are copying text vs copying a shape outside the platform?

Hopfully it gets fixed soon  ...but hey, their AI tools are cool right? LOL

[default30210326gixfhq]

Phew! The voice of reason. I was worried this forum was just full of Adobe apologists. As an occasional but competent user, I find there is much about Illustrator that is just plain clunky and really ought to be better. Apple, for all its faults, has always tried very hard to make the little things good (it's one of the things which has often differentiated it from PCs). The pursuit of the new and exciting is important; being innovative and breaking boundaries is important too, but Adobe shouldn't forget the little things which sow seeds of damage to the brand. Right now, I don't need AI tools, I just need the basics to work!

[Monika Gause]

Apple, for all its faults, has always tried very hard to make the little things good 

By @default30210326gixfhq

Not in my experience.

From me it has taken away the little things. Looking at you, labels. Currently there's nothing about my Mac OS systems that I don't hate. I only fear that I would hate Windows even more. 

Again: if you want a feature, don't post about it in this forum. The engineers will never see that. Go to uservoice. Post your request, Get people to vote on it, because obviously it's important how many people want a function.

[Bobby Henderson]

I primarily use Adobe Illustrator in that "icky" Windows operating system (although I do have an iPad Pro as well). If I run into a problem copying text from a graphics application like Illustrator into another application via the clipboard and all I want to do is just copy straight text I'll use a plain text editor app, such as Windows' Notepad app, as a go-between. Pasting the text into Notepad gets rid of all the fancy technical stuff that comes along for the ride. I just select the raw text in Notepad, copy that to the clipboard (which overwrites the Illustrator stuff) and then paste the plain text into the target application.

Adobe Illustrator is primarily geared for talking to other graphics applications, mainly those made by Adobe. It isn't made to dovetail into applications like MS Word or email clients.

[hiensmile]

Use your Gmail page as a portal to transfer text : Open an email page, paste the copy, and copy the text from your Email to another application.