Freaky Illustrator/Visio Issue

[Snowman]

This one's got me stumped. For the last two years I've been drawing
stuff like intercoms, home theater equipment, and that kind of stuff
in Illustrator CS2. Our product managers need these drawings in Visio
format, so when I finish in Illustrator, I bring up Visio and sweep
the object into Visio from Illustrator. Then in Visio, I can
manipulate it just like it was drawn in Visio.

The problem: Is, now, I sweep the object into Visio (works fine), but
when I select and ungroup the object, it disappears. Completely. We've
had absolutely no updates or patches to Illustrator and Visio - the
environment is exactly as it's been.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks

 

[John Goldsmith]

Hello Snowman,

Can you expand on your 'sweeping' action? Are you just selecting the object
in Illustrator and then dragging and dropping it into Visio, saving as...,
copy pasting etc?

Also what version of Visio are you using (plus what service packs)?

Best regards

John

John Goldsmith
www.visualSignals.co.uk

 

[Snowman]

Hi John,

Sorry for the really late reply; I got pulled to a different project..

To clarify, I've tried all three methods you mentioned and got the
same results all three times - that is, when I ungrouped the object in
Visio, it disappeared. For sweeping, I'd have both illustrator and
visio loaded and visible on my desktop; I select the object in
illustrator, hold the mouse key down, and drag it over the the visio
window. It looks fine in visio, but, can't ungroup it.. I've also
selected the object in illustrator, hit <ctrl> c then after
establishing the cursor in the visio window, I'd hit <ctrl> v. The
object again looks ok. Finally, I exported the object from illustrator
to a few different file formats, including enhanced metafile and
autocad drawing format. Emf looked understandably awful; autocad
looked worse.

I wouldn't be interested in this issue if the functionality I'm
seeking simply weren't available. But I used to do this all the time
and had no problems. Just select the object in illustrator, drag it
over to visio & drop it; I could then ungroup it and modify it as much
as I'd like.

Thanks for getting back to me on this - much appreciated. Oh yeah -
the versions I'm using:

visio standard 2003 (11.8161.8172) sp3

illustrator cs2 12.0.1


On Sep 28, 2:13 pm, "John Goldsmith"
Hello Snowman,

Can you expand on your 'sweeping' action? Are you just selecting the
object
in Illustrator and then dragging and dropping it into Visio, saving
as...,
copy pasting etc?

Also what version of Visio are you using (plus what service packs)?

Best regards

John
John Goldsmithwww.visualSignals.co.uk
news:[email protected]...

 

[John Goldsmith]

Hello Snowman,

I've had a look at this (using Illustrator CS v1 and Visio 2007) and I can
confirm that the drag drop between applications produces an single image
shape in Visio. This obviously can't be ungrouped as it's only a single
shape in the first place and hence the behaviour you're seeing.

As to the reason why I guess this is a change in either Illustrator or
Visio. I notice that you're running service pack 3 - did your drag drop
problem change when you installed this? I'm afraid I haven't got a 2003 SP2
version to test. This is just a guess and I certainly don't see anything
the the service pack details that suggests this might have changed. No
doubt others might have something to add to this.

In terms of a workaround you can still export from Illustrator as a wmf file
an Insert / From File... back into Visio. This produces an actual Visio
shape/s that behave as normal. Also you might want to look at saving the
Illustrator file in svg format and then opening in Visio (I've found trying
to Insert svg content somewhat problematic).

Anyway, not as simple as your original drag and drop I'm afraid.

Best regards

John


John Goldsmith
www.visualSignals.typepad.co.uk
www.visualSignals.co.uk

 

[Snowman]

Hello Snowman,

I've had a look at this (using Illustrator CS v1 and Visio 2007) and I can
confirm that the drag drop between applications produces an single image
shape in Visio. This obviously can't be ungrouped as it's only a single
shape in the first place and hence the behaviour you're seeing.

As to the reason why I guess this is a change in either Illustrator or
Visio. I notice that you're running service pack 3 - did your drag drop
problem change when you installed this? I'm afraid I haven't got a 2003 SP2
version to test. This is just a guess and I certainly don't see anything
the the service pack details that suggests this might have changed. No
doubt others might have something to add to this.

In terms of a workaround you can still export from Illustrator as a wmf file
an Insert / From File... back into Visio. This produces an actual Visio
shape/s that behave as normal. Also you might want to look at saving the
Illustrator file in svg format and then opening in Visio (I've found trying
to Insert svg content somewhat problematic).

Anyway, not as simple as your original drag and drop I'm afraid.

Best regards

John

John Goldsmithwww.visualSignals.typepad.co.ukwww.visualSignals.co.uk

















- Show quoted text -

Hey thanks John. I'd bet it is a version problem... Thanks for the
alternative method - it works fine.

Dan