Illustrator area type randomly breaking

[llewellyn09]

I have random instances of area type within a same .ai document breaking words to characters in the time between a close/save and the next reopening of the document.

Same font and size in area text box X will reopen correctly, while text box Y will retain the box, but with words broken to individual characters or pairs. See screenshot attached.

No consistency for this problem as to display size or text, font or color.

I've had this issue throughout Illustrator versions, currently using 2020 on a Mac Pro.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @llewellyn09,

Sorry to hear about this experience. I would request you to share a few more details like:

• Exact version of the OS and Illustrator
• Is it acting this way with some specific files? If yes, kindly share the download link to the file here or via DM.

Also, kindly try updating Illustrator to the latest version (26.2.1) and running Illustrator under the root user account and share your observations with us.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Anubhav

[llewellyn09]

I'm using an older OS and the latest Illustrator version possible thereon:

Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6

Illustrator 24.3

Single font is an otf format

Apart from the left column, all the type is broken to character sets or individual letters.

And apart from the upper left text box, even the boxes are disassociated from the contained type, in one case even disappeared (at the bottom left). Thanks in advance for any insights.

I was just alerted that this page's upload function accepts neither zip, ai nor otf files.

I've emailed you with those attachments.

[Anubhav M]

Thanks for reaching out. I have not received any email as of now. Kindly upload the file to a Cloud Service of your choice such as Google Drive / Creative Cloud and share a download link here or via DM so we can check it on our end.

Looking forward to your response.

Regards!

[llewellyn09]

https://we.tl/t-7yybGgB4cu 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

The second screen shot is what happens when you open a PDF with no Illustrator Edit Capabilities included; you are not opening an Illustrator file and hence lose all structure and proper editing ability.

A PDF only contains the instructions to create the text in print or on a screen, and particularly with text with kerning applied, it is technically necessary to break words into individual chunks to accurately position items.

[llewellyn09]

This was saved and reopened as an Illustrator 2020 .ai file.

Now I HAVE been in the habit of saving standalone Illustrator files without the "Create PDF compatible file" option chosen (many client-supplied docs with placed high resolution images got me to that habit).

Might that option being unchecked on save have something to do with loss of full editability?

[llewellyn09]

I just did a "Save As" on this file, choosing the Illustrator 2020 format, with the "Create PDF compatible file" option chosen. I got the alert "This file was modified outside Illustrator. Are you sure you want to save it?" So I believe my not choosing that option with my initial save may have defined the file as less than fully Illustrator-native, and lost some re-editing functionality as a result. Just a therory.

[Monika Gause]

Where do you save your files?

Sounds like you are saving to a network or synchronized folder.

Saving to a server has corrupted files for several people already. Same goes for synchronized folders. iCloud is also infamous.

[llewellyn09]

No, this was/is saved to my local drive, not backed up yet, and its folder not synced by any workflow actions. I usually save locally / copy to server manually.

Just curiosity at this point. I don't use Illustrator for copy-intensive tasks - this is a one-off project.

Thank you for your help!

[KellyAmb]

Hey there, Has there been any update on this issue? I just started experiencing this issue also - all my area type boxes turned into point type boxes when I had saved/reopened my Ai file, and also broke the text into multiple parts, and also added weird spacing. See photo attached! Is it possible to have a "corrupt text box" within a document? Thanks for any help!

Kelly

[Monika Gause]

Hey there, Has there been any update on this issue?

By @KellyAmb

So you save the file and when you reopen, then this happens?

Anything else happening when you re-open the file? errors?  clipping masks in the layers panel?

Could be that the file gets corrupt and only the PDF part can still be opened. Or it gets saved to a lower version. 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Your file was saved as an actual .AI extension file and this happened? Where is your file saved? Again, this appears exactly as what would happen if the a PDF version of the file was opened.  What's your Illustrator version? Can you uploadf a sample file?

[KellyAmb]

Yes I am saving as an .ai extension, and opening it back up as an Ai file (never opening as PDF). I am using Illustrator 2024 version 28.1. not getting any errors when saving or opening, no clipping masks in the document.

I tried to attached my .ai file but it wouldn't let me - its only 7MB - is there a certain way that ai files need to be attached? can they be atatched? 

this document IS a template from a client, and so they provide the blank Ai file with guides etc, but i have been using their templates for years, and never had this issue - although, this is the first time i used "area type" text boxes. and i copied one from their template and pasted it for most of the text in this doc.

from what i can tell, i think the original text box i used may have been corrupted, because i copied/pasted that same text box multiple times, and changed the text inside it. which made basically led to all the the text boxes being messed up - since they came from the oringial "bad" one.

i have been going through my file, making brand new "fresh" area type text boxes and re-typing the text - then saving/closing/reopening - and when i reopen, everything is fine.

However, still seems like you should be able to copy/paste a text box and re-use it without it getting messed up once the document is closed.

[Monika Gause]

When you have edited the file, do you "Save as"?

When there is the possibility that the file might be corrupted, you could select all, copy and then paste into a new file.

[Bobby Henderson]

Are the computers you and your client are using both on the same OS platform (Windows or OSX)? What fonts are being used in the template?

I'm asking because sometimes type objects can sometimes suffer glitches when the AI document is opened on a rival platform. Several factors can be involved. Both computers might have the same name of typeface installed, but the fonts might be different build versions. Or the fonts on the two computers might be in different formats (TTF, T1, OTF, OTF Var). Normally those cases would result in a missing fonts warning when opening the AI file.

Is the client using the latest version of Illustrator? Someone using an older version of Illustrator might try importing new AI art by way of PDF and then bake whatever occurs into the document.

[JAMalahito]

Was this issue resolved? Had the same experience just recently. And the thing that worked for me was:

• reverted to the last version which I know was working
• save as a local .ai file
• text issues are now fixed
• saved again as cloud file

My file is originally an .aic file. 

[RLChris121]

Apparently this is an issue that has appeared through the years.

I see this issue with broken text strings often. The PDF text in Illustrator often shows up like it was created with a mediocre OCR program. Sometimes the PDF source file was created from InDesign - sometimes someone created the PDF source file using other applications. I agree - documents where there is a focus on text should be done in a publishing program like InDesign or a dedicated word processor. But when a drawing or illustration has a just a few lines of notes or text associated with it - Illustrator should be more than capable of handling that task.

Easiest fix for me is to just retype the broken lines of text or take a screen shot of the corrupted document and just retype the text portion as it should be in a word editor (such as Windows NOTEPAD). Then delete the related but broken text string segments in Illustrator and create a new text box. Copy & paste the text from NOTEPAD into the new box and format it as you want it.

Importing - exporting, selecting various options, reformatting the original PDF output file is just a lot of extra work that should be unnecesary. Easiest for me to just replace the broken text strings and move on.

TWO EXAMPLES:

1. You can purchase these at a local auto supply store, etc.. (Where the line of text is broken in the word "supply" store, etc.

2. These can be obtained more economically from a localized source. (Where another line of text is broken in the word "localized" source. )

On occassion, a letter or pair of letters is replaced with a Dingbat font symbol, there may an unwanted space between the breaks, or segments of the same line of text overlap one another!

Is the text corrupted? Is the document corruputed? Who has the original file? What version software was this created in? What version of software are you using? Did the person who created the PDF use the option to save to editable file in Illustrator? Who is that person? Where are they? Can they send a fixed version of the PDF?

Some people may have time for all that. As for me - it is far more efficient to just manually replace the corrupt text, save and move on.