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Answered

Copy Excel charts into Illustrator?

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
October 8, 2008
39 replies
234308 views

Hi All-

I NEED to get charts that I have created in Excel (Microsoft Excel 2008 for MAC, Version 12.1.1) into Adobe Illustrator (CS2, 12.0.1).

I have hundreds of charts to do this with, so remaking all of the charts in Illustrator isn't really feasible. In addition, I must include error bars which I don't think Illustrator is able to do.

I also need high resolution images (which I why was told I have to use Illustrator in the first place) that are publication quality.

PLEASE HELP - I have been spending hours trying to find a way to do this and have been unsuccessful.

Thanks everyone,
jenn

Import and export

Correct answer Extraverage

Most of the comments are too old to be relevant here, so if anyone still wonders how to solve the same issue (so sad it still exists btw) – the best trick for me was: Right click on the chart and export as SVG. Illustrator opened that successfully.

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SciDot_ai

Participant

Hello All,

Yes, I recently moved to Office 2008 and Illustrator CS4 and that changed the way I get Excel graphs into Illustrator.

Now with Office 2008 and Illustrator CS4 I just select the graph in Excel and Copy,

then do a simple Paste into Illustrator CS4. Office 2008 text and lines seem to be in better 'shape' after they 'land' in Illustrator CS4.

The charts still need tweaking and cleaning, but overall they are less cumbersome than previous (earlier vers.) copied or 'dragged over' graphs/charts.

Mac OS X 10.5.7

Dot

P

phbolton

Participant

have Office 2008 and Illustrator CS4 (and Photoshop CS4 etc) all up to date on an up to date Mac Pro, can copy an Excel chart to Illustrator via .pdf and it comes through with multiple errors (as noted above) and the lines and text are not editable objects

the .pdf goes into Photoshop fine but does so as a rasterized object which is useless for my purposes (need to edit chart for publication)

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SciDot_ai

Participant

Mac OSX 10.5.7 CS4 Excel 2004 / but Excel-to-.ai worked with older configurations, too.

My work involves scientific journal illustrations, some of which come from Excel graphs. Once I have the graphs in Illustrator, I 'clean them up' -- as was mentioned on the Forum: Excel comes in with lots of repeated lines and icky rotated text blocks.

I understand a problem might exist with MS versions, etc. -- so --

I don't know if these little tricks will help your situation, or not, but this is what works for me.

I Open a blank RGB Illustrator page and shift it over to the right on the monitor.

Then I Open the Excel file with the graph and shift it over to left on the monitor -- so I can see both pages, I select the Excel graph by clicking on it once, making sure that I have the outermost 'Excel selection handles (black squares) selected, then I verrry sloooowwly move the Excel graph over to the Illustrator page with my mouse. You DO need some patience on this step: it needs to be done slowly and when you get to the Illustrator page you must (still) hold the mouse there for a while, until it copies over. The more 'lines' in the Excel graph, of course, the longer it takes. approx. 10 seconds, or so, for lots of data.

Once over in Illustrator, I discard all the extra lines and 'retype' any Excel-rotated text. Excel seems to put rotated text in a bit-map piece -- with the real (unrotated) text included nearby as a copy. I find the good copy (a few steps) and redo it so it 'reads correctly,' and toss the 'icky-bitmap/pixelated-rotated-text-block' that came from Excel.

I was so frustrated when some Excel graphs just would not 'move over' to my blank Illustrator page. Excel graphs are given to me from a variety of clients: some would copy, some would not. I finally discovered the problem -- and -- it starts with Excel. The Excel-to-Illustrator step would fail IF patterns were used in the Excel graphs. Once I changed any/all Excel-pattern-fills to shades of gray one-by-one (or color, probably ? [not tested by me yet]), I could then move graphs over to Illustrator just fine. Other 'Excel properties' may cause copy-failure also, perhaps? Just look around at the graph in Excel: even a pattern in a key/legend may be the culprit that causes failure in the transfer/move.

SciDot

K

Kirstena01

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the suggestions scidot. Office 2004 isn't an issue though. It works just fine, so that's what I'm going to have to keep using to prepare stuff for publication.

I've had some of the same issues you've mentioned with office 2004. I've had to go in and remove textured fills, gradient fills, change line weights to the smallest option so that they actually paste in as lines, not filled objects. I've even had to paste a graph into ppt, ungroup it there and make a few more adjustments, then copy it from there into illustrator. At least they go into AICS3 though.

Oh, the techs here let me upgrade to OSX 10.5.7 and that didn't make a difference.

Cybertaz on the office boards says he's stumped, he can't replicate my problem, it works fine for him. I don't understand why it works for some and not others. I swear it briefly worked for me last week after initially updating adobe suite, but now I feel like I must have imagined it.

I can check the clipboard in the finder and I know it's actually being copied, it just won't go into AICS3.

K

Kirstena01

Participating Frequently

Well. I stumbled on an odd work-around for my copy/paste issue.

open an AICS3 file or create a new one.

put an object on the page, then drag that object to the desktop to create a .pictclipping file.

After I do this, I can copy and paste to AICS3 all I want and it goes in just fine. It doesn't like the default new office fonts, gradient fills or shadows, but it comes over as vector.

The gradient fills and shadows paste in as raster objects. I just define a plain fill and get rid of the shadow before I copy. Change the font to Arial or something and it comes in fine also.

Maybe this will help anyone else having this issue.

I have to do this after every restart, but quitting AI doesn't seem to affect the temporary fix.

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_Bram_v_S__

Participant

Thanks for the replies!

I tried Ray's solution above, and it only works if you don't want to edit the image afterward, not if you want to be able to modify the actual vector image in AI.

Printed the graph, and saved as pdf. Imported into AI. This works for the pdf image. But after clicking "embed image" a pop-up window appears again: "The document contains PDF objects that have been reinterpreted: An unknown shading type was encountered". Again, all text changes to unreadable /(&(#32&+ type stuff as the image changes to vector format.

Guess I should have held on to Office 2004...

Larry G. Schneider

Community Expert

I think you are right, Ray. I have not been able to copy/paste any info from late version MS Excel into AICS3. It still works for AICS2/Office 04. OSX.5.6, AICS3

Larry G. Schneider

Community Expert

Sorry, forgot to include specs.

rcraighead

Legend

I understand this is a MS Office 2008 issue. It work MS Office 2004. I understand the workaround is to print to PDF and open the PDF in AI.

(I don't have MS Office 2008, so I can't verify this).

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_Bram_v_S__

Participant

Oh yes, and I am using Mac OS X 10.5.5

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_Bram_v_S__

Participant

Thanks for the suggestion to use <Shift+Click> Edit to copy the Excel graph in Vector format, but I seem to be getting the same problem as Adam above. This is what I do: * Select graph in Excel (2008 for Mac, V.12.1.5) * Shift+Click on Edit in menubar, select Copy Picture * In Copy Picture pop-up menu, select following appearance: "As shown on screen" (default), not "As shown when printed". * Paste in Adobe Illustrator (CS2 for Mac, V.12.0.1). Pop-up window says: "The document contains PDF objects that have been reinterpreted: An unknown shading type was encountered" * Resulting vector drawing contains messed-up text like: %2#456#, none of the text is displayed as in Excel. Does anyone have a solution for this? Other than retyping all the text... Thanks Bram v.S.