non-existing/editable elements in ILLY CS2

[beermonster]

well here's a strange one, with a simple work round

opened a pdf in illy cs2 recently - all went well, no major surprises and even no font issues.

so there i was applying traps to elements - not harming anyone, just trapping away - and i had some spot text to spread. only - it wasnt as simple as stroke and overprint.

the element was uneditable. it wasnt linked, embedded, grouped, locked, on locked/hidden layers or anything. it was as if it was there - but wasnt really - illustrator was just kidding....i could move it, scale, rotate - do anything except edit.

it would not expand, there was no mask to release - nothing worked - it was plain wierd. yeah - i could rasterize it, but it was spot so no good. live trace and paint didnt work either.

i tried everything I knew (at that moment in time)....

solution: copy element, paste as PATH into photoshop (yeah ILLY - Photoshop can see the paths - why the frell cant you!), select all path, copy again, and paste back in illy "in front/behind (if you need to keep original illy element that is) and viola - editable paths! stroke applied, overprint applied, new knowledge gained.

next!

[TimS]

I have seen this too with text in Illy CS2, can't wait to see if there is an answer. It may be related to legacy text as I was opening files from previous versions, and the Ily files were pdfs saved with Illustrator editing capability inside.

[jv58]

Was it a box with an "x" through it? If so, it was legacy text. In the "type" menu, there should be something about legacy text and updating it (these may not be the exact instructions as I do not have Illustrator available to me right now). Once you do that it should become editable again but it may track or kern differently so watch for that.

Joe

[beermonster]

yeah it was text but no - no legacy update available.

like i said - nothing worked, except copy, past in photoshop as path and copy paste back to illy. this was a pdf opened in illycs2, and yeah i was thinking it had illustrator editing enabled at save time too.

it worked a dream. hopefully it might help someone out on here as well sometime :lol:

[pspdfppd]

yeah, legacy text and all that bulls%#$@ is a real pain in the ass.

very much so!

[dnewc]

What if, when selected - flatten transparency (vector settings)?

I wonder if that woulda worked...

I've ran into a couple of those weird ones and can never remember my way out of it verbatim.