Can't paste art from Photoshop into Keynote

Question

Can't paste art from Photoshop into Keynote

I can't seem to paste typical bitmapped art from Photoshop into Keynote.

If I try to Copy (whether it's a flat JPEG in Photoshop, or Copy Merged working from a layered file), I just hear the Mac's error alert sound when trying to paste into Keynote.

Strangely, I can copy/paste vector artwork easily from Illustrator into Keynote, and I can copy/paste a JPEG from Preview into Keynote. Just not from Photoshop.

Please note: I'm aware way I can import JPEGs by dragging and dropping a file from the Finder, or using the Insert > Choose command, but I'm specifically asking about Copy/Pasting here.

Thanks,

R

Posted on Sep 1, 2020 2:02 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

VikingOSX

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Sep 2, 2020 12:01 PM in response to Robbie Sinclair1

I don't have Photoshop here to test this deeper, though I do have tools to inspect what is put on the clipboard.

Open the Terminal application, and copy/paste the following into it, followed by a return. This clears the clipboard contents.

pbcopy <<<""

Now, in Photoshop, copy your .jpg data from Photoshop to the clipboard. Then in Finder, select Edit menu : Show Clipboard. What do you see?

When I open a .jpg in Preview and copy to the clipboard, it is put there as a public.tiff image, and which it remains when I paste it into Keynote v10.1. No .jpg data is placed on the clipboard. It is possible that Keynote simply cannot cope with the data type that Photoshop is pasting there (e.g com.adobe.photoshop-image).

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Answer 2

Sep 2, 2020 5:38 AM in response to Robbie Sinclair1

It depends on what Photoshop is actually placing on the clipboard, and whether that content is intelligible to Keynote. Apparently not, and that is unsurprising since Adobe was programmed to be interoperable with Illustrator, not Keynote.

Any luck selecting, and dragging/dropping the Photoshop content onto Keynote? I know that one can drag and drop an existing, multi-layer .psd onto Keynote just fine, but that would be more work for you.

Conversely, I just opened a multi-layer .psd in Affinity Designer 1.8.4, selected all layers, and copied to the clipboard. A paste in Keynote v10.1 deposited the result as a PDF appearing exactly as it did in Designer.

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Answer 3

Sep 2, 2020 10:33 AM in response to VikingOSX

I've tried just copy/pasting even a simple JPEG. The same file can easily be copy/pasted from Preview, so it's hard to understand why Photoshop copying a JPEG to the clipboard would be much different than Preview copying the exact same file to the clipboard.

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Answer 4

Sep 2, 2020 12:16 PM in response to VikingOSX

Ah, that gave me an idea. When I looked at Show Clipboard, it was empty. Nothing was being copied out of Photoshop.

In Photoshop's General Preferences, there's an often-overlooked preference called "Export clipboard". When that preference is checked, Photoshop will now put its contents into the general Clipboard, so I can now copy/paste into Keynote!

Cheers.

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Can't paste art from Photoshop into Keynote

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