Copy text from Adobe Illustrator to the Save-As field

It stands to reason that if all other apps on your system are working correctly that Illustrator is the problem. I'm having no problem with it here. Currently using the latest CC 2015 release, but have never seen this issue in any previous version.

Try something simple, first. Close Illustrator. Open the Preferences folder in your user account and put the folder Adobe Illustrator 20 Settings on your desktop. The number will be different depending on the version of Illustrator you're using. Such as 17 rather than 20.

Launch Illustrator again. All settings will be back to the defaults. Try a copy/paste into the Save As name field.

CS6 was never supported for Yosemite and any issues inherent needed to be addressed by Adobe, and they chose to drop support. While the majority of Illustrator works in 10.10 there are issues with it the graphic artists I work with have come across and implemented workarounds as part of the routine.

If you create a new account and try this in the new account the problem is with the software or an incompatibility with some other software running, which does not exclude any other software in Creative Suite.

As for the exact reason to "why?" this is a question for Adobe. if you have not already try the Adobe forums and see if your post gets picked up by an engineer who can explain better than us guessing as to what it could be.

Adobe Support

Adobe Forums

He means to open the System Preferences and click on Users & Groups. Click the lock so you can access the buttons at the bottom. Click the + button to create a new account. Doesn't matter what you call it. It's just for testing.

Once the account is created, logout of your normal account and login to the test account. Try Illustrator there.

If it works as expected, then something is wrong specifically in your normal account. If it's the same, then it may be a system wide issue, which reinstalling the OS may, or may not fix.

I do have the CS6 Master Collection here, so I can install Illustrator CS6 in Yosemite and see if it behaves the same. I just recently wiped the partition I had Yosemite on and reinstalled it, so it's pretty squeaky clean and should prove the issue one way or the other.

Sorry to say, the result is, "It no workee."

I've worked on a lot of Illustrator files over the years, but to my recollection, had never before tried to pick up text within a document to use as a file name. I would guess it has possibly never worked since testing with the current CC 2015.3 under El Capitan does the same thing. In both versions, I also tried all combinations of the clipboard settings in Illustrator's preferences to see it any of them would allow this to work. It didn't.

Illustrator has always had a very different clipboard from any other Adobe app, and sometimes does goofy things like this. Something to do with the amount of different data types it has to possibly deal with? Such as all of the these possibly being grabbed in one clipboard copy:

PostScript text

TrueType text

plain text

raster image

vector shape

raster fills and strokes

vector fills and strokes

Whatever the case, it's impossible to pick up text within an Illustrator document and directly paste it into the name field when saving. The easiest way to get it there was to have a plain text TextEdit document open on the desktop. Paste the text there, copy it, and then it can be pasted into the Save As field.

I don't even have to re-copy it from there — it would then work when saving and pasting in Illustrator. WEIRD.

That's Twilight Zone weird! 😀

I'll have to try that one with CC 2015 to see if it does the same thing.

What it does prove is that yes, the text is on the clipboard since you can paste it into any other app. So why won't Illustrator pay attention to it without having to first paste it somewhere else?

Just bizarre.

You were exactly right. With CC 2015.3, I didn't even have to copy the text back after dropping it into TextEdit. Just putting it there allowed me to then paste it into the Save As field.

😁 I'd like to hear Adobe's engineers explain that one.