Pasting from one Illustrator file to another changes y-coordinates

[GodsGeneral]

Hi!

I seriously hope that someone else has had the same issue as me, or else this would be really hard to explain.

Sometimes when I copy items from one file to another, it changes the item's y-coordinates. It doesn't move the item to different coordinates, it CHANGES them. It doesn't make sense. It usually happens when I'm copying more than one item at once.

For instance - the coordinates of the item group or multiple items selected simultaneously, would be 0, 60. After I've copied them to the EXACT same place (in a different, but similar, .ai file) using Ctrl-F, the coordinates would change to 0,-99.999. When I isolate the group or select only one of the copied items, the coordinates would show correctly (0, 60).

The two files are exactly the same (I duplicated the original file and added/removed layers). I've tried grouping the items before copying, ungrouping them before copying, copying one layer at a time (with Paste Remembers Layers deselected)... It turns out that it's usually just one layer that is giving me the issues. I haven't tried copying one item at a time because there are quite a number of items on the layer and it would take forever. It's a little frustrating when I want to move the items around.

I remember that on another instance, it was one group of items on a layer that did this (I didn't copy all items on the layer), which meant that I couldn't use the coordinates to move it to where I wanted.

I'm using the latest version of Adobe Illustrator CC (2017). I haven't done this before now, so I don't know if this happens in other versions of Illustrator.

My artboards are always at 0, 0 in the top left corner.

Let me know if you need to see the file or screenshots of the issue. And thanks in advance!

[Monika Gause]

Please show.

[Simmer1]

Hi GodsGeneral,

Have you tried Paste in place?

Thanks,

Sim

[GodsGeneral · Accepted solution]

You know what, I just found the issue after seeing what would happen if I paste in place as suggested (exactly the same thing happens), and it makes me feel a little silly.

Apparently I had guides there, which I must have used for a 3-column grid and hid afterward. The guides are at -99.999 y-coordinates. I've completely forgotten about them. Totally my bad. So for those who didn't know - guides can now be selected and copied even when hidden.

Thanks for the help, anyway, guys!