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lumengrave
Participant
August 4, 2020
Answered

Missing artwork (tiff) file in Illustrator after moving file/folder location

  • August 4, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1483 views

I'm sure the answer to this is obvious, but I haven't been able to find exactly what I'm dealing with online in the forums. I recently migrated an entire local folder of Illustrator files onto a OneDrive cloud folder (for various people to have access to), and now multiple different AI files are missing the internal artwork (tiff format) that's always been there. And this isn't a universal problem across all of the hundreds of our AI files--many have retained the internal artwork, but many others are missing them.

 

I've tried loading the AI files on various computers, including the original source computer, and nothing. Any idea why this is happening, and is there any kind of fix to this that doesn't involve me recreating every single piece of missing art? 

 

Hoping for the best, thanks everyone!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jacob Bugge

lumengrave,

 

It is a relief that you (seem to) have it still.

 

And there are crucial differences:

 

Artwork copied and pasted becomes an integral part of the AI document, just as any artwork created directly in it.

 

When you Place a file you can choose between linking and embedding; with linking you only have a representation of the file in the document which allows your doing certain things with it such as clipping (to see only the clipped parts), whereas embedding integrates the placed file in the document and allows you to do more such as distorting.

 

I believe your issues may be a matter of errors in (re)linking; if you have the same (sub)folder structure it ought to be easy/possible to relink within that, and the document ought to alert you and ask for the relinking; otherwise it will be more laborious.

 

If it is a matter of an incomplete transfer, you will need to go back to the source, of course.

 

2 replies

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Jacob BuggeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 5, 2020

lumengrave,

 

It is a relief that you (seem to) have it still.

 

And there are crucial differences:

 

Artwork copied and pasted becomes an integral part of the AI document, just as any artwork created directly in it.

 

When you Place a file you can choose between linking and embedding; with linking you only have a representation of the file in the document which allows your doing certain things with it such as clipping (to see only the clipped parts), whereas embedding integrates the placed file in the document and allows you to do more such as distorting.

 

I believe your issues may be a matter of errors in (re)linking; if you have the same (sub)folder structure it ought to be easy/possible to relink within that, and the document ought to alert you and ask for the relinking; otherwise it will be more laborious.

 

If it is a matter of an incomplete transfer, you will need to go back to the source, of course.

 

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 4, 2020

lumengrave,

 

I believe this is a silly question, but am I rught in believing that the original folder was moved out of the original computer, with no going back to the previous state, such as an Image or Time Machine or something similar?

L
lumengraveAuthor
Participant
August 5, 2020

Hi Jacob,

 

Not silly at all. The original folder was moved off of our C: drive in Windows and onto the OneDrive folder to sync across devices/cloud. So yes, original folder was moved, but is still on the original computer itself (I think--unless moving to a cloud folder in Explorer "removes" it from the computer itself). 

 

Maybe I'm just not fully understanding how embedded artwork functions within Illustrator, and that might help with my issue. It's odd that some of the artwork pulls up perfectly fine in some files, and then in other files that artwork is just missing. Is there a difference in the way artwork is embedded in, say, using the "Place" function to place artwork within in Illustrator file, versus opening the artwork in Illustrator and then copying/pasting it into the file? Does one "embed" the artwork into the Illustrator file itself, while the other "links" the artwork to an outside, stored location?

 

That's probably an anwer I can investigate myself, and if that's the case, may be the answer to my confusion. The next step I suppose is figuring out how to "relink" those images so that they re-populate into their respective files.

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