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New Participant
June 15, 2020
Answered

File not found error when opening an ai file.

  • June 15, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 8055 views

When I recently switched computers to work at home, I put all my files in Adobe Creative Cloud.  When working at home I download the file and open... However some files show as do you want to replace as it cannot be found.  

Why is this happening on all my files?

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Correct answer S_Gans

When you placed your images into this project, you likely created a link to the original location of those files. So, even though you moved your Illustrator document, you either didn't also move the associated files, or changed their relative location to the original. To fix this, either embed your placed files, or create a package. This creates a new folder with all your linked files, and changes Illustrator's information on their relative position in the file system. To learn about packaging, see this article:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/package-files.html

1 reply

S_Gans
S_GansCorrect answer
Community Expert
June 15, 2020

When you placed your images into this project, you likely created a link to the original location of those files. So, even though you moved your Illustrator document, you either didn't also move the associated files, or changed their relative location to the original. To fix this, either embed your placed files, or create a package. This creates a new folder with all your linked files, and changes Illustrator's information on their relative position in the file system. To learn about packaging, see this article:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/package-files.html

Adobe Community Expert / Adobe Certified Instructor
New Participant
October 14, 2022

This is great to know, thank you! Is there any way to embed the files post hoc? I don't have access to some of the images in my ai file anymore but I need to edit the ai file. Everytime I open it it reduces the resolution of the images that it cannot find (I assume it is just using the thumbnails it created of them as placeholders). I have a PDF version that opens fine in acrobat but when I open it in illustrator it does the same thing.

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
October 14, 2022

Try to open the PDF file in Photoshop in the Import dialog select Images and save them to relink/embed them in Illustrator.