Copy/paste out of office to other apps broken

[ckbrown]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I was upgraded to 2008 and now can no longer copy photos and graphics from PPT and Excel to Photohop or Illustrator.

I have to do this a lot since many of my clients are not comfortable with creating figures in adobe products, or made something for a presentation that they now want converted for publication.

Anyone else have this problem or know of a fix besides exporting everything as PDF's?

 

[CyberTaz]

It sounds like you've been up*graded* but your upgrade hasn't been
up*dated*. Copy & Paste was an issue at one time but that was corrected
several updates ago[1]. Run Help> Check for Updates from any Office program
& let it do its thing -- the current update level for Office 2008 is 12.1.7,
so don't stop until you're there. Once you've updated run Disk Utility -
Repair Disk Permissions... and a restart of your Mac wouldn't hurt.

Note: [1] I'm going from memory here since I'm not at one of my Macs, but
I'm pretty sure the Adobe issue was resolved in the fix. If that isn't the
problem you might repair disk permissions anyway & post back if the problem
persists. Once I get home I'll dbl-check to be sure.

 

[ckbrown]

I'm running the most recent update - 12.1.7 of ppt and had my permissions repaired yesterday morning. (no more ppt updates since then)

I still can't copy any graphic or photo from ppt to illustrator. . It's rather annoying.

It sounds like you've been up*graded* but your upgrade hasn't been
up*dated*. Copy & Paste was an issue at one time but that was corrected
several updates ago[1]. Run Help> Check for Updates from any Office program
& let it do its thing -- the current update level for Office 2008 is 12.1.7,
so don't stop until you're there. Once you've updated run Disk Utility -
Repair Disk Permissions... and a restart of your Mac wouldn't hurt.

Note: [1] I'm going from memory here since I'm not at one of my Macs, but
I'm pretty sure the Adobe issue was resolved in the fix. If that isn't the
problem you might repair disk permissions anyway & post back if the problem
persists. Once I get home I'll dbl-check to be sure.

--
HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
Office:Mac MVP

wrote in message

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I was upgraded to 2008 and now can no longer copy photos and graphics from
PPT and Excel to Photohop or Illustrator.

I have to do this a lot since many of my clients are not comfortable with
creating figures in adobe products, or made something for a presentation
that they now want converted for publication.

Anyone else have this problem or know of a fix besides exporting
everything as PDF's?

 

[ckbrown]

I checked my adobe suite for updates and it had a lot of them. I ran those and now it appears to allow me to paste things in from PPT. Yay!

 

[CyberTaz]

That was to be the next direction to point you toward It was a joint
which required adjustment on both sides of the fence. Kudos for taking the
initiative to make the move on your own

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[ckbrown]

Sigh. It's broken again and I can't figure out why. I can still paste from PPT into Photoshop, but that doesn't help me get vector stuff out easily. I can't copy/past from excel or ppt into Illustrator. I tried repairing permissions and restarting but that didn't help. I'm looking around on adobe's site to see if I can find anything there. We are still using Adobe suite CS3. I'm not sure when our company is going to adopt cs4.

Chris

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, I don't know what to tell you... I've been sitting here copying
clipart, AutoShapes, TIFFs, etc. from both PPt & Excel then pasting into
Illy CS3 (13.0.2) with no problem. This includes both single selections
multiple objects as well as Grouped objects.

What exactly are you copying & how are you going about it? [Yeah, I know...
How many ways can you copy/paste, right? But give a complete
blow-by-blow of exactly what you're doing.]

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[ckbrown]

Ok. Here's everything I can think of to include.

My versions of software are:
Mac OSX 10.5.6 (techs here don't want me to update to 10.5.7 yet, but if there's good reason to, I can talk to them)
Office 2008 12.1.7
Illustrator cs3 13.0.2

My normal procedure is to open the client file, click on a graphic or graph (graphs I select the whole chart area), whether it's PPT or excel and use command-C to copy, then flip over to AI and use command-v to paste it in. This is how I get graphs and vector drawings to AI from office before version 2008.

I have seen the shift - edit menu - copy picture trick and have tried that with no luck.

With office 2008, I select, say a chart area and copy and I have no real indication that I can find that it did in fact copy, except that I can paste copies of the item between office applications or on the same document.

Normally files I receive are not xlsx or pptx, they have been saved compatible with 2004. I have tried creating a native 2008 file and copy/paste but I get the same results. Nothing.

With AI, I have templates set up based on the publication to be sent to that are preloaded with proper margins and paragraph styles. These are native CS3 documents, not upgraded files created with a previous version. I have also created a new blank document to paste into and that doesn't work. (just in case a template was slightly corrupt)

I'm not sure what else to try. Our other artist just upgraded to office 08 and is having the same issues. I told her about running the Adobe updates and making sure office was really all the way updated after they installed it. That hasn't helped her either. They repaired her permissions after the upgrade.

(sorry if this posts twice, the site is doing some odd stuff for me today)

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm afraid I'm still stymied. I've been copying .xls & .xlsx charts from
2008 & pasting into Illy with no problem [other than it seems Illy doesn't
understand the new MS fonts].

There's probably not much point other than for general knowledge, but you
can see what's been copied. Once you copy switch to Finder & select Show
Clipboard from the Edit menu. You should see that what you copied displays
just fine. If it wasn't getting copied you wouldn't be able to paste into
other programs, though.

Since you're able to do that it indicates that there's nothing wrong with
the programs you're copying from or with OS X, so the problem has to be on
the Illy end... I just can't figure out what it might be. I'll continue to
play with it as I can but I don't even know what I'm looking for :-} If I
come up with anything I'll reply back with whatever those findings may be.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[ckbrown]

Thanks for how to view the clipboard. I can see what I copy there. Our tech let me upgrade to 10.5.7, but as you thought that's not the issue, it still didn't work.

I ran the upgrade, restarted, repaired permissions, restarted again and tried to copy/paste. No luck.

I've turned it over to our tech and maybe he has more resources with adobe support. I don't know if our company has a support package with them or not. I couldn't find any more information on this over there. The user forum wasn't any help.

Thanks

 

[ckbrown]

Well, I have found a consistent work-around. It baffles both me and our techs. (they dubbed it the oddest computer problem for the day).

I borrowed one of our loaner laptops that has CS3 and office 08 on it. I made sure both were up to date. The os is not all updated it's 10.5.6

I created new xlsx and pptx files and opened a new basic rgb file in AI

I made a basic bar graph in the excel file.
I put a basic shape, a line and a photo from clip art in the powerpoint file.

I select the chart area in excel and copy, flip over to ai and paste. Nothing.

I select the shape in ppt, flip over to AI and paste, nothing.

On a whim, I drag the graph to the desktop. It creates a pictclipping file. I try to drag this in to AI. Nothing.

I pull a symbol to the page in AI from it's symbol pallet. I drag that to the desktop to see if it makes the same kind of file. It also makes a .pictclipping file.

I drag the .pictclipping file from AI back in, it comes in fine.

I again drag the .pictclipping file from excel into AI, now it comes in fine. HUH?

I copy from excel and paste to AI. It WORKS!

I copy the shape from ppt and paste in into AI....it WORKS!

I don't understand.

I restart the computer and everything behaves the same way. The new office 08 fonts come in as garbage, but I can change the font before I copy it out.

Once I insert the pict clipping from AI it's fixed until I restart. (or maybe quit out of the software)

I have been able to replicate this on my machine and the other artist's machine.

 

[ckbrown]

oh, I forgot to add that a .pictclipping file created from photoshop goes into AI just fine and does not enable the office clipping files to be dropped in.

I don't have to drag the .pictclipping file back in that I created in AI, I just have to create one and then the one from excel can be dragged in.

I can paste to PHotoshop from ppt and excel just fine.

 

[CyberTaz]

Quite a detailed analysis - have you & your techs nothing better to do with
your time ???

Based on your findings there are a couple of maintenance techniques you
might try:

1- start up from the OS X DVD. Run Disk Utility - Repair Disk [not Repair
Disk Permissions] or run Disk Warrior if you have it. Repeat as necessary if
any errors are found, and

2- Retrieve the COMBO updater for either 10.5.6/7 & apply that... The Combo
Updates have a bit more restorative powers than the low-cal versions
supplied by Software Update.

Thanks for sharing the info! I'd like to hear further on how you make out.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[ckbrown]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Hehe, it's a slow day and this problem annoys me enough to keep chewing on it.