Creating File from Template - Crash Issues

[Grand_High_Aviator]

Hi,

I have created four template files (including a number of swatches, graphic styles, symbols and layers) at my company using Illustrator CS6. These initially worked absolutely fine, but have suddenly stopped working. The template can be opened, but when anyone tries to save to a .ai file (either using Save As or Save a Copy), the program freezes and then crashes, with a dialogue box appearing that says 'Adobe Illustrator CS6 has stopped working.'

Has anyone else had any experience of this, or any suggestions? Like I say, the template files were working fine previously...

Thanks,

Tom

[Mike_Gondek]

Anything change recently such as your OS or server version?

What OS are you using?

If you copy and paste everything else into a fresh new document will this save without crashing?

[Grand_High_Aviator]

Hi,

Nothing's changed that I'm aware of, although the IT team may well have been meddling in things. Everything else works as normal, including Illustrator itself, other than these templates.

I'm working in Windows 7.

I can copy and paste things from the artboard - is there a simple way to copy and paste the symbols, swatches, graphic styles and layers? As it's just a template there is minimal information on the artboard, basically a drawing frame and a logo.

Apologies if any of these questions are a bit basic!

Thanks

[Mike_Gondek]

Very good question, this is not basic at all. I am not aware of a way to import all the swatches, styles, and layers from one file to another with one command.

You can use the fly-out menu on all palettes except layers to import from your .ait file, but you will get a separate palette, so I do not believe that will work for you.

My guess is you want that in your swatches palette, so we will have to think out of the box, but using boxes what a conundrum. Draw a few boxes and fill each item with one of your swatches,  you copy and paste the swatches magically appear, and I believe that will work the same for other palettes.

Now if each of those was on a layer, the layers will import also.

Now the reason I suggest to do this is the file may have become corrupted. Templates often do become corrupted especially if they have come form many different documents and over many different versions of illustrator. There may be extra lines of code in the .ait file you have that are causing your issue. Going through the code and manually deleting can be time consuming.

If this does not work, feel free to post a copy of your file using dropbox or similar, and will be happy to look at the file.

[Grand_High_Aviator · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping to repair the original files, but in the end I just saved the swatch, graphic styles and symbols libraries out separately then imported them into a new file. I also drew 10 lines and assigned each one to a layer, then copied those lines into the new files and deleted them in order to bring the layers in.

Thanks again!

[Mike_Gondek]

Great, wish there was an easier way to do this.

Can you select the post that best helped you even if your own. Pretty much everyone appreciates points from a symbolic level, but changing the post to green really helps us on the forums to know the post is closed and you do not need further assistance, so we can focus on the ones that do.

[Grand_High_Aviator]

Will do - without being big-headed or anything my solution was the best one for me!

Thanks for your help