Illustrator to PowerPoint vector pasting no longer working?

[carln90164570]

Just updated to 29.8.1 and I can no longer copy and paste a vector direct from Illustrator into PowerPoint. I can normally just grab an illustration from Illustrator and copy/paste into PPT, but since the update it's pasting nothing. I'm on Windows 11 and have tried copying from different Illustrator files and also tried restarting computer but still the same. Perhaps someone could have a go and see if this is working for them or not. Thanks

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @carln90164570,

Thanks for reporting this. I tested the same workflow on my end using Illustrator 29.8.1 on Windows and was able to paste vectors into PowerPoint without issue. To help isolate what might be causing the problem, could you please try the steps in Safe Mode and see if the paste works there: https://adobe.ly/3JX3gfq. This will help rule out any third-party apps interfering with Illustrator or the clipboard.

If the issue persists, it would be really helpful if you could share a short screen recording showing your complete workflow from Illustrator to PowerPoint, so we can check further.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

[carln90164570]

Thanks for checking. Will give that a try 👍

[Egija25426484szag]

I have the same issue. Switched to previous illustrator version and it's working again. 

[carln90164570]

I'm on a work laptop and undortunately don't have admin permissions - looking through that guide I'm not sure I would be able to do that. Probably something IT would need to do which would be a pain to arrange. 🫤

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Check your Preferences > Clipboard Handling. It could be the settings you have in 29.8.1 are different than what you had before.

Regardless, It's always better to use a workflow that involves placing/importing files rather than copying/pasting. Export your Illustrator (e.g. SVG) and import that instead, as it's a vector format that PowerPoint understands

[carln90164570]

Thanks, have checked those settings but hasn't sorted the issue. Copy/paste is far quicker and in my experience works exactly the same as the svgs do - just avoids the faffing about with loads of individual files. 👍

[Wabber_HM]

Going to have to "me too" this as well. I think about a week ago or so, copying from Illustrator to any Office program doesn't work anymore on my work desktop. It's been so useful since support was added. However, the same feature works on my work laptop and I don't recall a major software update since then. I update both at the same time.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Wabber_HM,

Thanks for sharing your experience. Since the same workflow is working fine on your laptop but not on your desktop, it sounds like the issue could be system-specific. Could you please confirm your exact OS and Illustrator version on the desktop? If the problem continues, a short screen recording of the workflow would be really helpful so I can check this further with the team.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

[Wabber_HM]

Actually, Desktop is on Illustrator 29.8.1 while laptop is on 29.7.1. Both OSes are the same, which are Windows 10 19045.6216.

What I noticed after poking around with this is it started when I opened an EPS file for some stock art I downloaded. I've been doing this just fine back and forth on both systems last week. But what I noticed was it would not paste into PowerPoint unless the color of the vector art was #000000 and not anything else, like the default #505050 gray it was. So at least I have a workaround for now.

[carln90164570]

That's odd @Wabber_HM. I've just tested that and it does the same for me and will actually paste into Office apps as it used to if the colour is set to #000000. Hopefully Adobe fixes this glitch so we can copy full colour again... 🫤

[briane89425706]

Team having same issue. In 29.8.1 they cannot copy and paste vectors from Illlustrator to PPT. I downgraded them to 29.5.1 and it works fine

[carln90164570]

An update popped up for Illustrator today but installing that hasn't fixed the problem. Version still shows as 29.8.1

[Wabber_HM]

Speaking of this issue, apparently this has never worked properly on the Mac OS side? Why don't we get feature parity with this workflow? Currently, Mac users copying vector shapes from Illustrator into PowerPoint for Mac will produce rasterized images that cannot be manipulated in PowerPoint as they can on Windows. The only workaround on that system is to export them as SVG first, then importing those.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @Wabber_HM,

Would you mind enabling the option for Include SVG Code on copy under Illustrator's clipboard preferences to see if it helps with your workflow?


Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav

[Wabber_HM]

This setting is already enabled on both systems. I still need the workaround for Windows. On Mac, the paste is not SVG-based since the pasted shapes cannot be recolored within PPT like they can on Windows.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @Wabber_HM,

Thanks for confirming. Could you try installing Illustrator (beta) (https://adobe.ly/4pwxar7) and checking if it behaves the same there?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[jctremblay]

Same issues with Illustrator Beta and PowerPoint.

[Tony36607195uess]

I have had the same issue since the last update to 29.81 and have been using SVG conversion as a workaround, but it really adds hours to my workflow per week.
Is there any news of a fix or do i have to roll back to the last version of Illustrator for a while? 

[Anubhav M]

Hello @Tony36607195uess, @JEAN-Claude Tremblay,

Thanks for confirming. Kindly allow me some time to check this with the team.

Feel free to reach out if you have more questions or need assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Anubhav

[Anubhav M]

Hello everyone,

The product team has requested additional information. Please share a link to your preferences folder after zipping the files and uploading them to a file-sharing service.

You can access the Illustrator preferences file from this location:

• macOS: ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator <version> Settings/<locale>/Adobe Illustrator Prefs
• Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator <version> Settings\<locale>\x64\Adobe Illustrator Prefs
  
  

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[jctremblay]

Here you have it....

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/w3bmntfuwnqzrcfbni7eu/Adobe-Illustrator-29-Settings.zip?rlkey=8ppxpw0...

[Wabber_HM]

Hi. I hope this works. Otherwise, I'll have to upload it somewhere else on a personal account.

https://limewire.com/d/Zml5T#k16Nv17Wm5

[Wabber_HM]

Having to work around this issue, it seems SVG code won't generate unless the shape being copied is entirely the black color only. I'm copy and pasting these into Notepad to save them to SVGs and I noticed it won't paste anything unless the color is #000000. So it's not just exclusive to PowerPoint or Office apps, which interpret the SVG as an actual scalable image in their respective apps.

[Anubhav M]

Hello everyone,

Our team has tried fixing this in the latest Illustrator (Beta) build - 30.0.0.91. Could you try installing it to check if it helps resolve the problem.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav