7 replies to this topic

[jerseysbest]

I've been using symbols more and more over the past year, and I've noticed that every so often, the symbols will be moved to the top left of the document I'm working on (see attached JPG below) when I open up a saved .AI file.

First couple of times I thought it was something I did, but its happened a few more times... any ideas why this is happening?

Attached Files

•  illy_symbolmisplaced.jpg   11.2K   17 downloads

[frax]

They get scared and run off and hide in a corner, hoping that you won't discover them. I would check the coords of the art, where 0 is - check the rulers.

[Matthew Hampton]

Interesting. I don't have any answers - but a few questions. Are they always with the same symbols? Do the symbols change scale at all or are they correctly position with regard to spatial orientation, and you can snap them back into place? CS3-4?

[David Medeiros]

The only times I have ever had this happen in any version Illustrator have been when I was accidentally selecting objects from other layers when moving or transforming something. Occasionally this will be the result of an "unlock all" command. If you "unlock all" and then move or transform without first deselecting you will inadvertently effect any object that had been locked (same for "show all").

[jerseysbest]

Interesting. I don't have any answers - but a few questions. Are they always with the same symbols? Do the symbols change scale at all or are they correctly position with regard to spatial orientation, and you can snap them back into place? CS3-4?

They've all been on different maps, just when I use symbols. Whats really funny, is that symbols I have in my legend, which are in a different layer in Illustrator, will move also, but not to the same extent as the others. This is in CS3, on a gov't computer, so who knows. This has never happened to me with CS2, but I really haven't started using symbols until I started using CS3.

The only times I have ever had this happen in any version Illustrator have been when I was accidentally selecting objects from other layers when moving or transforming something. Occasionally this will be the result of an "unlock all" command. If you "unlock all" and then move or transform without first deselecting you will inadvertently effect any object that had been locked (same for "show all").

Yes, haha, I think we've all done this at some point. I really thought it was something I was doing, but this has happened with a few documents that were sent out (as PDF's), printed, approved, etc, so the docment was intact the last time it was used. It seems to happen when I open it up. It really could be something I'm doing and still not realizing, I happy to take blame, haha, but its seems like a curious little quirk...

[s hubbard]

just read your quandry...
i bet your cut and pasting....and sometimes it sends the pasted label way off into the unknown.
then the LB shows up later (in final print usually)

[Andrew Patterson]

I don't know if this is related or not, but I've recently become aware of a bug related to symbols in AI wherein symbols behave as if they have a hidden transformation associated with them that cannot be seen or edited (even in code). We had a customer trying to plot symbols and they were off with some symbols but not others. I investigated it and confirmed that the symbols were not working the way I expected (I wrote the point positioning code for MAPublisher) and I filed a case to Adobe at the end of 2009. I just heard back from them a few days ago and they confirmed that there is in fact a bug in with Symbols that can cause this behaviour (though I should mention its rare -- I've only just now seen a report and its with one file, and I've been doing this for over 10 years!). Adobe did mention this is fixed in the next release of Illustrator.

A workaround that solved the problem in our case was to simply recreate the symbol. Drag it out of the symbol palette, break its link to the symbol, drag it back and give it a name. Then replace all of the old instances with the new instance and the problem ceased. I don't know if that will help you or not, but it's worth a try.

[jerseysbest]

Well, it happened again, and I'm about 99% sure its a bug. Not a huge problem but still kinda curious.

I had a few symbols grouped with other pieces of text and shapes off to the side not on the art board (an old Legend), and a few other symbols on the art board. Opened the file up and only the symbols moved, even the ones that were grouped with other objects, and they were still grouped. But curiously enough, not all the symbols on the map moved, haha.

Not only that, I saved the file to restart my machine, and visually inspected it as I generally do before saving and everything was fine before opening it up again.