Copy & Paste issue between Excel & Illustrator CS5

[robertg123]

I am operating within macOS Sierra v. 10.12.3.

There is problematic issue with the copy and paste function between Excel v 15.30 and Illustrator CS5 v 15.0.2.

The Paste function from excel into illustrator results in incomprehensible symbols on the illustrator art board, which also prompts illustrator to crash.

Is there a preference setting that needs updating?

Is there a patch to resolve this issue?

Thank you.

[Monika Gause]

Probably it's just caused by the font Calibri in Excel. Change to a different one before copying

But ontop of that: you're using outdated software on a system that doesn't support it anymore.

[jasonh49881134]

I am having the same issue with the current versions.

• Excel for Mac v15.36
  • Font Arial 11pt
• macOS Sierra v10.12.6
• Ai v2015.3.0

See image for result of copy and paste from Excel to Illustrator.

[Mike_Gondek · Accepted solution]

Try exporting Excel to .pdf, and placing that. Or open in Acporabt and copy the characters and paste into Illustrator.

[jasonh49881134]

Yes, I can paste into a third application like TextEdit then re-copy and paste into Illustrator. This worked.

I was also able to copy from Mac Excel to the Windows version of Illustrator without issue. 

[frazerpayne]

In Excel, exporting as an SVG is more reliable than exporting as a PDF. The PDF can still open up with the same text problem. SVGs work better.