Inspiring

Answered

Excel charts imported into illustrator

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
June 4, 2019
8 replies
5551 views

Hi All,

I am using MS Excel and illustrator in order to create publication-quality figures. First I create the chart in Excel and copy/past it into illustrator, modify it and then save the final results to EMF file then copy/paste it into MS Word. Finally, I save the Word document into pdf.

Using this approach, everything is working perfectly except for the text in charts imported from Excel. In illustrator the text is editable and I can change the font, size, etc. But when I check the text in the pdf file I see that the text is somehow distorted and I cannot select it, i.e. it is not text anymore. This is not the case if for example I removed the text imported with the chart and start writing text in illustrator as shown in the below image.

I can indeed remove the text and re-type it again but the problem is that I have many figures and it would be very tedious to check them all.

One more thing, when I select the imported text I found the object type is "Group" while the native illustrator text object type is "Type" as shown below.

Your help is highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Mohamed

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer meouda

I found the answer and I would like to share it here so maybe someone else found it useful.

I solved the problem by simply adjusting the horizontal character scale. Before it was 100.23% when I set it to exactly 100% the problem solved as shown in the picture below.

Thanks for your help

S

shaeer5E40

Participating Frequently

I found an easy solution to this! Copy and paste the graph into InDesign first. Then Cmd + C + Ragain from InDesign and paste into Illustrator.

The graph will have all the correct text and is fully editable.

S

shaeer5E40

Participating Frequently

I found an easy solution to this! Copy and paste the graph into InDesign first. Then Cmd + C + Ragain from InDesign and paste into Illustrator.

The graph will have all the correct text and is fully editable.

E

erics68157191

Participant

If it still doesn’t work, try selecting Times New Roman in excel before copying the chart. Worked for my wife who struggled quite a few hours. Calibri, Arial and other fonts didn’t work when pasting into Illustrator, but Times NR did!

meoudaAuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

I found the answer and I would like to share it here so maybe someone else found it useful.

I solved the problem by simply adjusting the horizontal character scale. Before it was 100.23% when I set it to exactly 100% the problem solved as shown in the picture below.

Thanks for your help

Peter Villevoye

Community Expert

Just a few hints to start with (I don't have much time to test things at this moment).

First, PostScript uses coordinates with values of many number of decimals (fractions of points). WMF and EMF use a less precise drawing language. So any point and path will be rounded to its nearest possible value, hence the rough outlines.

Second, start by using non-Microsoft-only fonts in Excel, so a Myriad, Minion, or any other more design-inclined font will yield texts and labels without all kinds of strange characters.

Third: keep texts as texts – don't revert them to outlines ! The WMF and EMF will retain their text-based character formats. But do check if any possible difference in spacing has any effect on the text flow.

meganchi

Legend

Have you tried changing the font to another in order to rule out any font issue?

meoudaAuthor

Inspiring

Yes, I did but the same issue appears regardless of the used font.

Michael Bullo

Community Expert

Do you really need to bring the Illustrator content into Word? Having pasted the Excel content into Illustrator, could you not complete the document in Illustrator and export out the final PDF from there?

meoudaAuthor

Inspiring

Yes indeed I need to do so and I found that EMF format is the best approach. I need that because I am writing my Ph.D. thesis. So, I need to combine those figures with text, equations, and tables while cross-referencing them. So, completing the whole document in illustrator is not an option.

Michael Bullo

Community Expert

Makes sense. Is writing your thesis in InDesign an option? Everything you mentioned is supported in InDesign. InDesign and Illustrator are both native Adobe applications so you are likely to have less issues with programs not playing nicely with one another. I also appreciate that this does not address your original problem.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Which version of Office is that? Can you perhaps export a PDF from Illustrator and import it in Word?

meoudaAuthor

Inspiring

It is Microsoft Office 2016.

Yes, I tried that approach also but when I convert the final Word document into pdf, the figures are rasterized. Also using this approach is not flexible in term of placing and resizing the images.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded