• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
1

Why can't I copy/paste my gradient from Illustrator into InDesign?

Guest
Nov 15, 2018 Nov 15, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I have followed every tutorial, reviewed every other forum on this, went step by step with all preferences and my gradient still pastes as an image. Is it the new update that refuses to copy/paste swatches between the two? Please help. Thank you.

Views

16.3K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jun 16, 2019 Jun 16, 2019

Hi acew1981 ,

the bug is fixed with InDesign CC 2019 14.0.2.324.

Just tested with Illustrator 23.0.3 on Windows 10.

Paste or Paste in Place was no difference. The gradient I copied over from Illustrator worked as expected.

Also see the list of fixed bugs here:

Fixed issues in InDesign

BugFixed-CopyGradientFrom-AI-to-INDD.PNG

Regards,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate
Community Expert ,
Nov 18, 2018 Nov 18, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Laubender

Uwe, are you saying the bug is that we are only seeing the upper left corner, then?

May I ask how you got the numbers? Did you write a script? Can we see it in the Gradient panel?

I am not in my office to test, but what happens if we resize the frame or reapply the swatch?

Good sleuthing!

Jane

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 18, 2018 Nov 18, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

jane-e  wrote

Uwe, are you saying the bug is that we are only seeing the upper left corner, then? …

As my numbers are showing GradientFillStart and GradientFillLength are way off. We don't see the upper left corner.

With one of my samples start is off about 4700 pts ( 65 inches ) x-direction and about 4950 pts ( 68 inches ) in y-direction.

Also length with about 7100 pts ( 99 inches ).

One can reapply the gradient fill.

First apply a different swatch like [Black] and then the new gradient fill again.

However that would spoil the applied angle of the fill, if there is one. It will be reset to zero.

Also the fill start position, if there is a different one than the left edge of the rectangle.

jane-e  wrote

…May I ask how you got the numbers? Did you write a script? Can we see it in the Gradient panel?…

I got the numbers by exporting the pasted rectangle with the applied fill to IDMS, opened the IDMS file with a text editor and discovered the numbers. You could also write a script to fetch them. The numbers cannot be seen in the Gradient panel.

One could move the path points of the pasted rectangle to show more of the gradient fill applied.

But one needs to do that with unlikely huge numbers. I tried that and expanded the 100 x 100 pt rectangle to about 5 x 5 meters. Still I cannot see the whole gradient.

Also tested copy/paste with a rectangle where the gradient angle was 45° in Illustrator. The result with the pasted rectangle was a -0.566° angle as seen from the Gradient panel. That means: The gradient angle is not transferred as expected.

Regards,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 18, 2018 Nov 18, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

All in all the best way to workaround the bug is:

1. Copy the object with the gradient in Illustrator CC 2019

2. Paste to a page in InDesign CC 2018.1, save and close the document.

3. Open the document from InDesign CC 2018.1 with InDesign CC 2019.

Or export an IDMS file or save as IDML from InDesign CC 2018.1 and place the IDMS file or open the IDML with CC 2019.

Regards,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 18, 2018 Nov 18, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Laubender​

Hi Uwe,

Also, it's coming into InDesign as a Group:

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 18, 2018 Nov 18, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

That's nothing unusual and is not new. 🙂

If there is a stroke applied it will show as a group of objects:

Rectangle holding the stroke.

Graphic frame with a nested rectangle holding the fill.

Regards,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 12, 2019 Jun 12, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I have just tried this several times and spent two days trying to figure out how to do this. I even contacted adobe about this and their support said it cannot be done. Out of frustration i kept trying many things. I decided to close out both indesign and illustrator. Created new files etc. Still no avail. I then copied the gradient object from illustrator and went into indesign and selected edit menu then "paste into place". it worked! I hope this helps someone else.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 13, 2019 Jun 13, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi aaronw22990910 ,

thank you very much for this contribution.

Currently I cannot test this with CC 2019.

What's your exact version of InDesign CC 2019?

What's your operating system?

Thanks,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 13, 2019 Jun 13, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Adobe indesign 14.0.2

Adobe illustrator 23.0.3

Windows 10 64 bit

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 16, 2019 Jun 16, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi acew1981 ,

the bug is fixed with InDesign CC 2019 14.0.2.324.

Just tested with Illustrator 23.0.3 on Windows 10.

Paste or Paste in Place was no difference. The gradient I copied over from Illustrator worked as expected.

Also see the list of fixed bugs here:

Fixed issues in InDesign

BugFixed-CopyGradientFrom-AI-to-INDD.PNG

Regards,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 17, 2019 Jun 17, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I can confirm on a Macintosh.

I successfully copied a gradient from Illustrator CC 2019 23.0.4 to InDesign CC 2019 14.0.2.324.

Illustrator gradient:

Screen Shot 2019-06-17 at 5.38.42 AM.png

Result copied into InDesign:

Screen Shot 2019-06-17 at 5.38.55 AM.png

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jul 12, 2019 Jul 12, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

If you have access to InDesign 2018 copy the art from your Illustrator file and paste it into a layout created in the 2018 version of InDesign and save the file. Then, you can copy the pasted art from the 2018 version of InDesign and paste it successfully into your 2019 version layout. It's a round-about way, but it worked for me.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Jul 05, 2020 Jul 05, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Not working again, Indesign 15.1.1 and Illustrator 24.2.1

 
 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Yes same here:Indesign 15.1.1 and Illustrator 24.2.1 on Mac OS 10.15.5 (19F101).
Copy paste a vector with a gradient from Illustrator does not work. The gradient is not scaling either.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi ClusterX,

what's your operating system?

 

Just tested a linear CMYK gradient with several color stops. The object with the gradient is pasted.

The bug I detected: Wrong colors! But I also have gradient samples where it worked. Have to test more…

 

CMYK gradient in Illustrator:

Copied-Gradient-1.PNG

 

Pasted result in InDesign:

PastedResult-Gradient-1.PNG

 

That's a totally differently bug, I think.

 

German Illustrator 24.2.1

German InDesign 15.1.1.103

on Windows 10

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi, Laubender.

My system is Win 10.

Now i have working copy/paste gradients. But i don't know what helped to me: some latest windows updates or clearing read only attribute of Indesign prefs folder. Because these two things i made before check.

 
 
 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi ClusterX,

do you still have the sample where you had issues with?

Somewhere there is indeed a bug, but I still cannot tell what exactly enforces it.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

BTW: Today I filed a bug (with Video) in the InDesign Support Portal. Check this: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/40932691-gradient-scali...

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Aug 23, 2021 Aug 23, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'm no expert, but I was having the same problem and this worked for me.


In-design preferences

> Display Performance

In the Options area make sure the 'Preserve Object-Level Display Settings' box is ticked

 

also

> Clipboard Settings

In the Clipboard Handling area - Clipboard area make sure the 'Prefer PDF when Pasting' box is ticked

 

My gradients started to appear as they should be

 

I also had problems scaling my gradients once in In-design - if this happens…
If the gradient appears in illutrator as a 'clipped layer' make sure to select the layer and using the layer window open the 'options for' area and make sure the 'LOCK' box is ticked.

 

I'm not saying this is a fix but these options worked for me.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
May 31, 2023 May 31, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I had the same problem.. both files were CMYK.. the problem on mine was both ends of the gradient swatches were colour picked so were not solid CMYK values. - ensure the CMYK break down of both ends of the gradient are complete numbers- for example C19 M99 Y55 K2 rather that C:18.78 M98.76, Y54.90, K2.34 🙂

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 21, 2023 Jun 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I do think there is an OS difference on this.
I can't get it to work on windows 10 , while there is no problem on Macos. 
This is a very annoying issue.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2023 Jun 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi @Ludovic29924883eoep ,

please attach a sample Illustrator file; just with a simple rectangle where the gradient is applied.

I'll test that on the most current versions of InDesign and Illustrator with macOS or Windows.

 

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 21, 2023 Jun 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello,

Thanks for your quick feedback. Here is a very simple file that contain a rectangle i'm unable to past properly as a gradient:

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 21, 2023 Jun 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2023 Jun 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@Ludovic29924883eoep said: "Here is a very simple file that contain a rectangle i'm unable to past properly as a gradient:"

 

Hm. Cannot see a file attached to your post. Did you answer by mail? Then the attachment to your mail cannot make it to this forum. Please attach the file using the forum controls when you do a reply directly in the forum.

 

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jun 21, 2023 Jun 21, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'm unable to upload the .ai here is the pdf

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines