Duplicating works in AE, not illustrator

Question

I create a circle

I duplicate it, it only moves the circle.

With After Effects, I duplicate everything and it works beautifully but with illustrator I think I mostly have to use command + C or option drag the shape layer to have a duplicate. Does anyone know why duplicating doesn't really work in illustrator?

creative explorer · Accepted Answer

@Evelyn___ if you want to duplicate objects like a circle in Adobe Illustrator, there are a few different ways. The one I like for duplicating is the first method:

Select the object. Hold Option (Mac) or Alt (PC) and drag and drop!
Select the object. And Copy and Paste. Command C (Mac) or Control C (PC). And Paste Command V (Mac) or Control V (PC)
Select the object in the Layers Panel. Click on the target (the circle gets selected) and drag over to the 'Create a New Layer' icon (beside the trash can). And move your oject
Select the layer. Go to the Layers Panel. Click on the drop-down menu (hamburger menu), and select duplicate layer. And move your object

Bobby Henderson · Answer

Adobe Illustrator has multiple methods for making copies of objects. The keyboard shortcuts on Macs and PCs are slightly different. On Windows machines you can drag a copy of an object while holding the Alt key. Or you can copy the selected object to the clipboard (Ctrl+C) and then paste (Ctrl+V) or paste in the same location/paste in front (Ctrl+F). Not every Adobe application has the same keyboard shortcuts for similar commands. Nevertheless, the ability to duplicate objects has been pretty standard for Illustrator for a really long time.

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