Distorted artwork in illustrator

[Mossy60]

Recently, any vectored file that I import into Illustrator paste in much larger than its original size. Additionally, the holding lines are much thicker. This is only a recent problem for me, as in the past, imported vector images always pasted seamlessly with their holding lines being the same weight.

Have I perhaps pushed a wrong button somewhere to start all of this? Thanks.

[Monika Gause]

From where do you get the files that you open in Illustrator?

How do you import them?

[Mossy60]

Indraw of my illustrations, believe it or not, in PowerPoint. From there, I simply highlight, and copy, or cut, and then paste into illustrator. Forever, it worked just fine. Suddenly, everything is pasting into illustrator much larger than original, and if I'm using holding lines in any particular piece of artwork, those holding lines get much thicker, which was not the case previously. Thanks.

[Monika Gause]

I would be happy that it works at all.

There might have been changes in how either Powerpoint or Illustrator handles the clipboard. So there's probably not a lot anyone can do to help you. 

You might take a video of this and provide the files and post a feature request on Uservoice. The developers can then check out whether they can solve it on their end.

https://illustrator.uservoice.com 

[Mossy60]

Thanks. The deal is, my PowerPoint is ancient, and my illustrator is not exactly brand new. I draw in PowerPoint 2010, which people laugh at. However, back then, PowerPoint had an incredibly powerful vectored drawing capacity, which rivaled Illustrator, Corel draw, or any of the rest of them. And, it is much easier to use, with a much lower learning curve than Illustrator.

Support has ended on both of my platforms, and so I'm a bit perplexed that this has happened all of a sudden. I still think it's a relatively straightforward, simple issue, where by I accidentally pushed a button somewhere, I wasn't supposed to push, and it changed the whole dynamic. But, I may never know. I will reach out to the other people you suggest, and see what I can find out. Thanks again.

[Monika Gause]

So your apps have not changed. What about your system?

Did you install anything that "enhances" the clipboard?

[Jacob Bugge]

Mossy,

Can you state the original size as well as the pasted size?

What happens if you set the W value (in the Transform panel) of the pasted artwork to be the same as the original width and then Ctrl/Cmd+Enter (hold Ctrl/Cmd and press Enter)?

My first thought was that it could be something with the difference between the default/often used resolution of 300PPI, maybe as a setting in Powerpoint (which I have never had). That could make the pasted size 4.1667 times larger than the original, so you could just scale the pasted artwork to 24% (or multiply the W value by 0.24 (just add *0.24 to the current value) and Ctrl/Cmd+Enter.

[Mossy60]

Thanks. The last piece of artwork I attempted to insert into illustrator was a piece of artwork 33.77 inches tall, by 54.85 inches wide. I was inserting it into a 3 x 5‘ illustrator palette. When I pasted it, it ended up being 50 inches tall roughly, by 85 inches roughly. I was able to shrink it down to its original 33.77 x 54.85, but once again, all of the holding lines were too thick. I’m not sure what kind of formula it would take on power port side to get it right.

My point from the beginning has been this. Up until recently, anything I brought from PowerPoint over to illustrator pasted in the exact same size I drew it to begin with. So, I am not certain what I did to change things. I have an ancient version of PowerPoint, and a not so new version of illustrator, both contained completely within my computer. So, no updates came my way that should have altered anything.

[Larry G. Schneider]

How did you scale the file to the size you wanted? At the bottom of the Scale dialog is a checkbox which says Scale Strokes and Effects. Is the box checked? If it is, then try it with the box unchecked.

[Mossy60]

Ok. The height of my original art is a group should be 44.62 inches high, by 43. 08 inches wide. As you can see, it is   74.4504 inches high, by 71.7074 inches wide. The only options I have to work with are all on the top of the ribbon, as per my water photograph, as you can see. Where do I want to go within that ribbon to this? Or, is that my option?

[Jacob Bugge]

Mossy,

It seems that you are working with 120 PPI in your ancient PP (Power Point), and in AI it shows up at 72 PPI: 44.62/74.4504 = 0.6 = 72/120.

So you just need to scale it down by the factor 0.6, in other words to 60% in Object>Transform>Scale Uniform, or by adding *0.6 to the W value and press Ctrl/Cmd+Enter in the Transform panel, and obviolusly tick the Scale Strokes & Effects in either place, as Larry has said.

This has made me wonder:

"I have an ancient version of PowerPoint, and a not so new version of illustrator, both contained completely within my computer. So, no updates came my way that should have altered anything."

Have you updated/upgraded your OS?

That could bring about changes, even serious/devastating ones if you go (too far) beyond what the applications were made for.

Some have issues with old AI versions, CS or even early CC, after upgrading the OS, or even lost the ability to work with those versions.

So maybe you are lucky to have things work at all.

[Jacob Bugge]

Mossy,

I am unsure about the meaning of this:

"The only options I have to work with are all on the top of the ribbon, as per my water photograph, as you can see. Where do I want to go within that ribbon to this? Or, is that my option?"

As far as I can see, you can select everything, and the selected artwork goes beyond the current window at the current zoom level at both top and bottom, and the artwork consists of outlined Type (containing) CUSTOM presumably, and some sets of vector artwork surrounded by circles, as well the two (mirrored) elephant/palm raster images also surrounded by circles. There are ribbons in a number of the sets including the large one with the arms and the flag.

So I wonder what are you unable to work with, and also which ribbon you are referring to?

[Mossy60]

I have not up dated the operating system, nor have I gotten any updates from illustrator, or PowerPoint. Additionally, I have no updates from Lenovo, as the computer is very old.

My problem simply started happening.

You mentioned in an earlier text my needing to change some options at the "bottom" of whatever I was working on. As you can see by my full screen picture after resizing, I have no command buttons at the bottom anywhere. Everything is in a ribbon up at the top. If I need to go to one of my command buttons there, and on to sub command buttons, I have no idea where to go.

I have also enclosed a couple of pictures of the British royal crown on top of the line on a colonial British Columbia badge. You can see how finally detailed the crown is, in the PowerPoint picture. It's blown up here, but the crown itself it's only a third of an inch across.

Then you can look at the crown again over in Illustrator, and iIllustrator has thickened to all of the holding lines, in many ways, taking away the fine detail.

Up until very recently, this was not a phenomenon. Whatever I drew in PowerPoint, regardless of detail,  pasted right into Illustrator perfectly. My holding lines were not manipulated or thickened in any way. This is why I think I have made a simple accidental push of a button somewhere, that has spurned Illustrator to thicken things all of a sudden. If I could hunt that command back down, and readjust it, I think I am back in business.

Oh yeah, There is the fourth picture of all of my command options before scaling my heart work down. That's the other full screen picture.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse · Accepted solution]

I'm going to suggest you change your approach: Save your PP file as a PDF, then OPEN that in Illustrator

[Mossy60]

That does sound like a good plan. Can my PDF be revectored once in Illustrator?

[Monika Gause]

That does sound like a good plan. Can my PDF be revectored once in Illustrator?

By @Mossy60

What do you mean "revectored"?

If that is vector content in PowerPoint, then it should be exported to PDF as vector artwork. And then when opening it in Illustrator it should stay vector.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"Can my PDF be revectored once in Illustrator"

It already IS vector. In fact, it may be of better quality than the copy and paste method you are already using. System clipboards are traditionally pretty "dumb" and usually copy bezier curves in a lower quality than Illustrator is capable of.

The one caveat I should point out is that any live text you may have may come into Illustrator with the incorrect encoding and may turn it to gibberish... especially so on the Mac with certain Microsoft fonts (I'm looking at you Calibri)

[Jacob Bugge]

Mossy,

Concerning the "change some options at the "bottom":

it was Larry who wrote this:

"How did you scale the file to the size you wanted? At the bottom of the Scale dialog is a checkbox which says Scale Strokes and Effects. Is the box checked? If it is, then try it with the box unchecked."

It is crucial to have the Scale Stokes & Effects ticked to avoid the thickening of the ribbons when scaling down: otherwise they will retain the greater thickness from before the downscaling.

Your four latest screenshots show exactly the effect of failing to have Scale Stokes & Effects ticked.

[Mossy60]

Thanks everyone. I will experiment and try everyone's advice, and see where it gets me. When all is said and done, I will let you know if I have been able to get things back to "normal" as it were.

[Mossy60 · Accepted solution]

Addressing the collective. The moving a PDF over to ilIlustrator solves by overall problem. I will continue to try to understand why the enlargement thing happened to begin with, but if  I encounter that again, I can simply bring a PDF over and work from there. It's an extra step, but solves my overall issue.

There was the mention of perhaps having issues related to fonts. There are letters in several of my images, but no fonts. Each letter is an individual vectored piece. This is a trick I learned in order to make sure that pieces of artwork are more historically precise as I redraw them. I am able to place individual letters exactly where they need to be, as opposed to settling for wherever a vector drawing platform places them via there font parameters.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in. This is my first experience with any type of online support group. You guys are awesome!

Clay

[Jacob Bugge]

For my part you are welcome, Clay, and thank you for sharing.