Skip to main content
misalo
Participant
February 20, 2024
Question

Is it possible to add KEYWORDS to an Illustrator file to find the file using Spotlight?

  • February 20, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 473 views

I want to be able to find files that have specific content (a certain icon, for example). I've tried adding KEYWORDS to an Illustrator file (FILE INFO > BASIC tab) to see if they were searchable via the Mac Finder/Spotlight, but no hits. Is this even possible? There must be a way - this seems like a productivity/time-saving no-brainer!

For example, I have a vector file that contains a bunch of graphic icons within it; I'm working on another project where I need a certain icon that I know I must have somewhere. Rather than looking through my vast vector collection, I'd like to be able to do an alpha search using Spotlight to see if I already have the icon before looking on a stock site. I thought if I added keywords for each icon within this file, I could find it by searching for the topic name but that didn't work.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Ton Frederiks
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 20, 2024

Keywords in Illustrator files are not recognized by the Mac OS (but keywords in Photoshop files do).

But I am afraid it is more an Apple problem, the OS does not look at the XMP data in the file.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 20, 2024

Does it work when you just write those keywords into the file on the artboard?

Then save the file with "PDF compatibility" turned on.