Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 2/20/2008

Question
I recently obtained Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and operate with Windows XP; I was trying to put together a project and when I would try to import excel charts via copy and paste, the illustrator just closes unexpectedly.  I have a second computer with Vista on it and the same thing occurs there.  Any suggestions? I've already tried the creating a TEMP file in the C: drive with no luck.

Answer
Hi Adam,

You should not bring in the data using copy and paste, even though the help menu suggests it. It can be much information for Illustrator to handle depending on the amount of info.

To bring in Excel information, draw your graph area to bring up the Data window. Then click on the first button which is import data. Select your excel file and you should be good to go.

If your Illustrator still crashes when you do this, you may have problems with the size of the spreadsheet. So then try importing a fake small 4 column/4 row sheet. If that comes in ok, then you know it has something to do with your Excel file and not Illustrator.

Thanks

Kevin