Missing pattern swatches in illustrator

Question

I have an illustrator document with 650 squares, each with a unique pattern swatch applied. However, in my swatches pallette, there are only 642 pattern swatches.

I intend to package the patterns from the swatches pallette, so I need all 650 to be in there, and must have somehow deleted a few from the swatches palette (though they are still applied to objects on the pasteboard by the looks of it?). Is it even possible to have patterns applied to objects that aren't showing in the swatches palette?

I've tried copying and pasting the 650 squares with patterns applied to a new illustrator document, so that the patterns are re-added to swatch palette, and again the patterns come up short in number compared to the pattern objects on the pasteboard, and I can't seem to find any duplicates that would explain this!

Anyone have any ideas on how this could be happening? or ways to force illustrator to add all pattern fills used on pasteboard to swatches pallette?

I basically have 650 patterns I need to batch rename and export as a library, so having patterns missing and not knowing which ones they are is very frustrating!

thanks in advance

kimmo242 · Accepted Answer

Did you import this file from some other application? GIS for example?

It's possible that patterns importet from other applications are actually applied to the object, but are not in the swatches panel. This is rare, but I've seen it in documents. You then need to create the pattern swatch from the object.

Hi there, no I created them in the very same document in illustrator. Have figured out what is happening though!

So it looks like in illustrator, if you have say 5 patterned objects on artboard, and 5 corresponding pattern swatches in the swatches pallette, if you delete one of the corresponding pattern swatches from the swatches pallette leaving only 4 swatches, you can still have the deleted pattern applied to the object on the artboard, but not have it show as linked to a swatch in the swatches pallette. Even if you copy and paste your 5 patterned items from the artboard to a new document, you will still only have 4 patterns show in the swatches pallette.

To fix this I selected all of my objects with patterns applied on the pasteboard, on the top right flyout of the swatches menu I found an option called 'Add used colors' which luckily applies to patterns also! after doing so I now have 650 patterns back in my swatch pallette again. Phew!

Thanks for your replies

lambiloon · Answer

i understand lets wait hope you find some more easy solution by other fellows here.

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