Copy Excel charts into Illustrator?

For anyone having the issue of scatter chart data point markers becoming raster when pasting the chart into AI from Excel, see the solution posted here; it involves relinking each embedded linked data point to a new AI file.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macexcel/excel-scatter-plots-are-pixelated/19a51fa3-1f5f-4eb3…

I'm having a similar but different problem. For a training class that starts tomorrow evening, I had to create a faux, rather large (33"x33") Scrabble type board. 30 squares 2" each with borders, etc. I created it in Excel as at the time, that seemed the easiest however, I tried importing into Illustrator & Indesign to no avail. It seems each 8.5x11 section as 1 page. In Illustrator, I set up a 33"x33" art board & tried to place the spreadsheet to no avail. Any insight anyone could provide would be most helpful. Thanks so much, in advance.

Hi All -

I recently upgraded to CS5 and encountered the same issue as people were having using CS3.  I also use illustrator to create scientific figures for publication and use to be able to take the plane graphs and charts that excel produces and actually turn them into a decent product.

I've read through this forum's posts and thought I would contribute a bit.

I have both Excel 2004 and 2008 for mac.  (Sad, but 2008 was too slow and could not handel all the data that I have).  I first ran into the problem, trying to copy a graph from Excel 2004 into Illustrator CS5, and it places it as an "embded object" rather then giving me vectors that I can work with.

Using Excel 2008, It looks like I get a vector image, no problem - however, this was after doing the create an object and drag it to the desktop trick (so I can't say if that effected the problem, causing it to work).

The create a PDF in excel and then open that in Illustrator seams to work ok (but I don't care too much about fonts, just the lines).

Does anyone have experience with the new office 2011?  All this makes me nervous - and its why I keept my old version of Illustrator around for so long.  This seams like something that Adobe should help to fix in future software updates...

One thing however that I do think I should mention and found intersting is that I was having no issue importing Excel charts by copy/paste into Illustrator CS3 (as people were discribing).  However, I had to re-install office 2004 at one point, so I wonder if the issue could be solved by re-installing office after you've upgraded your Adobe package?  (Just a thought).

Lastly - setting your illustrator document to RBG vs. CMYK is a real issue and a bug I was avoiding in CS3.  You can of course always change it back at the last minute before it goes to publication.  (And this was an issue not just going from Excel to Illustrator, but other cut/paste jobs as well).

Hopefully this also helps some.

Mac OS 10.6.8, Adobe CS5, Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008.  (2004 re-installed after 2008).

I am having the same issue - I tried all of these suggestions - AND YES - IT USED TO WORK!!!! 

(I also prefer pasting into and working in GOOD OLD FREEHAND MXII!) 

So, I opened up Illustrator 2 which I still have on my Mac and the Excel graphs pasted into that (RGB) file as vectors perfectly again.

Then I copy that file into the Illustrator CS5 file.  Now I can work with them!

Very frustrating when so-called improvements are NOT improvements!

I came here with the same problem as the original poster. After trying all the "solutions" listed here, I found a simple solution that really worked for me. I can see that each user has unique problems, but here's the one that works in my case, using Mac (specs below)--

Create a PDF from Excel -- INSTEAD of using the inbuilt Mac option to do this, use the Adobe PDF printer driver.

There may be a few issues that are not useful to some - depending on your workflow, such as the text all comes in as outlines and some elements were images (not editable without tracing), but the borders are compound paths, etc., so this (for me) though not 100% ideal, is a very workable method.

All the other solutions listed in this topic/query did NOT work for me, but the simple difference of how to make the PDF made it work!

Maybe my post will help another whose symptoms are the same.

Joan

Excel 2008; Mac OS X 10.5.8; AI CS5 v.15.0.2

Here is a video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3CJfBlZuW0

Adobe illustrator CS3, M/S Excel 2003, HWP 2002(Korean Wordprocess),

Macro Keyboard, script, Action ...

I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!

When you open an illustrator file -> new. Click advanced and change color mode from CMYK to RGB. This does the job! You can now paste your excel graphs in the file!

If your text is in odd characters make sure that the original font in excel is not in Calibri (it's to new) but arial for example.

Regards,

Pieter

Here are a few tricks I use to increase likelihood of success from Excel 2004 to CS3; perhaps they'll also help in later versions:

1. Because Illustrator likes PostScript fonts, convert all fonts used in the Excel chart to the closest PostScript equivalent. This usually results in text that imports accurately into Illustrator and is editable.
2. If you are getting color banding, it's probably because the Excel chart—internally rendered at 96 dpi—needs to be larger before exporting. Just for laughs, double or triple the page size and expand the chart to fit the entire page. You may have to view the resulting Excel screen at 25% or 50%.
3. In Excel's Page Setup, set Print Quality to 300 dpi or better.
4. In Excel's Print window, click on PDF and choose Save PDF as PostScript.
   
5. Open with Illustrator.
6. If Illustrator doesn't recognize the ".ps" file, rename it to ".eps" and try again.

Nine out of 10 times this works for me. Good luck!

Jim

I've got Illustrator CS4 and Excel 2008 and also have been experiencing problems with copying and pasting charts into illustrator from excel.  All the text tends to appear as random characters.

This appears to be an issue with the font.  The default font for the newest version of excel is Calibri.  If you change everything to something else, like Arial, you can paste your charts in without issue.  Even though Calibri exists in the illustrator font library, it seems to have trouble properly interpreting this.  It's easy enough to then go in and change the font in illustrator back to whatever you want.  Many other fonts in addition to Arial paste just fine, but Calibri definitely doesn't.