Copy Excel charts into Illustrator?

[_Jenn_Kruk_]

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

[joziG]

Hey, saving to PDF works like a charm!

Fantastic!

Thank you so much.

Gerd

[_Gary_Newman_]

Whether you get the Excel chart into Illustrator via copy/paste or PDF, I think you may face the same problems Jenn mentions. Depending on how the chart was created in Excel, there may be too many data points - the horizontal or vertical axis may have a line of text for every point, and they all overlap - you may be able to select them all and change the point size to something small enough to distinguish; or rotate each instance of type 90 degrees (move them to a new layer and ungroup first, then Object > Transform Each).

Sometimes each bar has a fill and a stroke; when brought into Illustrator they are separate objects. I generally select one of the stroke objects and Select > Same Fill and Stroke, and delete them, leaving only the filled bars.

I find it helpful to move all the useful data - for example, all the bars of one color, bars of another color, horizontal lines, x-axis, y-axis, and so on - onto separate layers. Much easier to work with when you can selectively lock, hide, and transform.

[rcraighead]

I agree. I sure didn't claim it was clean. Sometimes it's easier to just do a screen-capture and trace it in AI.

[_Gary_Newman_]

Also, don't forget Illustrator's Graph tool. If the data in your Excel sheet is numbers (no dollar signs or % signs), you can select a range of rows and columns, copy, and paste directly into the data sheet of Illustrator's Graphing feature.

[joziG]

That is true, Gary, but I find Illustrator's graph tool incredibly limited and cumbersome.

I wish it weren't!

[Wade S Zimmerman]

>but I find Illustrator's graph tool incredibly limited and cumbersome.

>I wish it weren't!

I think we all do!

[remixtdesign]

Isn't there a better alternative out there? It's 2009...there has GOT to be something better than this...anyone?

[_Bram_v_S__]

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. <br /><br />This is what I do:<br />* Select graph in Excel (2008 for Mac, V.12.1.5)<br />* Shift+Click on Edit in menubar, select Copy Picture<br />* In Copy Picture pop-up menu, select following appearance: "As shown on screen" (default), not "As shown when printed".<br />* 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"<br />* Resulting vector drawing contains messed-up text like: %2#456#, none of the text is displayed as in Excel.<br /><br />Does anyone have a solution for this? Other than retyping all the text...<br /><br />Thanks<br />Bram v.S.

[scfree]

Change the font to Arial before copying

[_Bram_v_S__]

Oh yes, and I am using Mac OS X 10.5.5

[rcraighead]

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).

[Larry G. Schneider]

Sorry, forgot to include specs.

[Larry G. Schneider]

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

[_Bram_v_S__]

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...

[SciDot_ai]

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

[Kirstena01]

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.

[Kirstena01]

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.

[pb11-sMVBb4]

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)

[SciDot_ai]

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

[bjest]

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.

[Kirstena01]

It's a "known issue" for cs3 that the new office 08 fonts are not compatible with adobe.  That includes calibri, the default font, and a few others.  I can only assume that the issue is present in cs4 also, from the sound of it.

[cbgraphiste]

I've been through the same problem and your answer just save me! Thanks bjest!

[Jim_Lange]

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

[PdeBokho]

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

[Guest]

From: dboleneu

I am using CS5 and I too attempted an import of an Excel graph, with intent to modify and later export from CS5 to JPG, as I have done perhaps 100s of times for many years with AI-10 and with previous versions of Excel 2001, 2003. We use the exported JPG for publication. For a time I was baffled as to why such a simple task was unsuccessful.

I tried all the previous fixes suggested here, on opening, used New, selected Advanced & change to RGB; still I was unable to Save in CS5 nor Export; then changed all fonts to Arial and then to Times Roman; still I was unable to Save in CS5 nor Export. Then I changed a fill pattern in Excel before copy and pasting to CS5; I changed from a hatch feature to simple fill, then opened with RGB option, and Arial font, imported to CS5, made a few changes, then Export and Save As worked properly. No error messages. It has wasted 3-4 hours though. Hurrah!! Hope this helps someone.