Expert: Amy - 9/21/2007

Question
Hi.
I'm using illustrator CS running OSX 10.3.9 and I am having the following
problem. I created a
document in illustrator and imported several photoshop images into the
document. I created paths in the photoshop files so as to import just the part
I
need in my illustrator doc. When I completed work the illustrator image
looked just
right.

Several months have passed and I need to re-access the illustrator document
and
edit it. When opening the file I am instructed to "repair" the document by
finding the original graphics and re-importing them. When I go to the menu
and find the file for repair I find the photoshop files are grayed out. How can I
repair these if the files are grayed out? Why is illustrator not accessing thses
files? The folder containing these photoshop images is
also on my desktop, so it's not like they're absent.

Unfortunately I cannot re-save these files as jpgs and repair the illustrator
document because that gets rid of the paths created previously.

What is the problem? This has never happened in the past. What do I do?

Thanks.

Answer
Hi Rich,

Can you re-place them manually?

If you can open the document at all...

Using Direct Select tool (white arrow), click on the image. Make sure the clipping path is not selected. That's why we're using the white arrow tool.
With the image alone selected, File>Place (locate image) check Replace (and not Link).

Repeat for all images. That's the only way I can think to fix them.

I wonder. How are you opening the document? Is Illustrator open when you open the document, or are you launching Illustrator by double clicking the broken document.

Another thing to try - deleting the AIprefs file.
1 - Quit AI
2 - Locate and delete AIprefs file on your machine
3 - Relaunch Illustrator.

I quickly browsed Adobe.com forums for your error and it seems that a few people are reporting it with, unfortunately, no responses.

Let me know if any of this helps.
-Amy