Chinese into Illustrator won't go!!!

[nicsta]

Hi,

I need to input some translated Chinese text I receive in a rtf file into Adobe Illustrator 10.0.3 English version on Mac OS X 10.2.6 also English version.

Short story, I can't make it work!

The rtf file opens up just fine in TextEdit, but if I try to place it into Illustrator, some of (sometimes all of) the Chinese text comes in as rubbish or just blank. I have tried enabling the Chinese input menu from the System Preferences International Pane (both simplified and traditional), still no good.

I have also tried copy and paste directly into Illustrator, still no good.

If somebody wants to have a crack at it, the rtf file can be viewed/downloaded at:

<http://homepage.mac.com/nicsta/.Public/smtm05.rtf>

Ironically, the Chinese text looks just fine in Safari browser. Is Illustrator the only program that can't see this text?

All I need to do is get it into Illustrator long enough to select a different font and then turn it into outlines. Hey, I just had an idea, maybe if I change the font in TextEdit and then create a pdf file, it will import into Illustrator as outlines. OK, just tried that, no good, Illustrator imports the pdf as editable text and still can't see the Chinese part. Aaarrrggghhh!!!

Update, I also tried importing that pdf file into Photoshop, it rasterised it and brought the Chinese text in successfully, but I would prefer to have it as outlines in Illustrator, if anybody has any suggestions on how to do this, i would be really happy to hear from you.

Regards

Nick

[Wade Zimmerman]

I would try it but there was no download at that link.

[nicsta]

It works for me, have you tried to option-click the link?

[nicsta]

The formatting is all messed up on smtm05.rtf try downloading smtm06.rtf instead, link follows:

<http://homepage.mac.com/nicsta/.Public/smtm06.rtf>

[Timothy Cheng]

Chinese type in smtm06.rtf are Hiragino Mincho Pro and Kai. I open it with TextEdit. Change them all to Kai. Copy them. Open Illustrator 10. Select the font Kai in charater palette before paste. It work fine. Then I can change them to any chinese font and convert to outline.

[David Howe]

another tip is if you have indesign, copy and paste the text into indesign, format it as you require. You then can export the text as an eps. you can open the eps in illustrator and the fonts will open as proper chinese characters. if you dont have indesign you can always download a free 30 day trial from the Adobe website

[Wade Zimmerman]

Oh I just copy and pasted the text into AI and then selected for instance Bejing aND ALL THE TYPE LOOKED FINE.

[harry tsai]

I have the sAME problem too, however; the problem happens to be on window 2000 eng version, with illustrator 10 eng version too. there shows only question mark, whenever I try to type chinese letter in there. same problem happens to my photoshop 7.0 too however, only ming liu the default font will show but none other fonts that I have installed. For those who knew the answer please help

[Wade Zimmerman]

I believe you will probably have to enable the chinese language as well on the Windows system as well and there is probably a chinese input panel of some kind that you will have to make visible.

But do try the Windows Forum you might get a more helpful response.

[Louis Fishauf]

I'm having a similar problem problem bringing Chinese text into Illustrator. The Chinese text displays properly in a PDF file that was supplied (the accompanying MSWord file displays the Chinese as blank spaces or a mess of symbols and punctuation).

When I try to copy the text from the PDF directly into Illustrator, it's just a mess of symbols and boxes.

When I try to open the PDF in Illustrator, I get a dialog saying: "Missing TrueType fonts have been substituted with the default font. Fonts with foreign encodings have been reencoded". (even though I know I have those fonts -- they're listed in AI's font menu). When the file opens, once again I get a mess of symbols.

When I copy the PDF text and paste into TextEdit, it looks good, and I can change the font. I've had some success pasting into TextEdit, formatting the same text in a number of different fonts, saving, and then opening the TextEdit file in Illustrator. Some fonts make the translation, others are "missing" to Illustrator, even though they are in fact there. BUT...upon closer examination, some of the characters seem to have been substituted when copying and pasting from the PDF into TextEdit -- they're not the same as in the PDF. No matter what font I format them into, I still can't get the original characters back.

I've tried pasting into InDesign (it crashed the program), into Sherlock's translation channel (sometimes works as an intermediate between PDF and TextEdit), and occasionally, through some convoluted series of steps, I'll be able to get the Chinese into Illustrator in a font I can work with, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the process. I try repeating steps that I thought had worked last time, and find they now don't appear to be giving me the same results.

I still have a bit of work to do on this project, and will be getting more Chinese translations, so any help would be much appreciated. i've pretty much run out of ideas.

[Wade Zimmerman]

This is what you have to do first go to the System Preferences and bring up the International Preference Pane and go to the input menu tab and make sure the Chinese you want is active and check off when you do that you will see and American Flag in the Apple Menu Bar at the top of the screen click on the flag and from the drop down menu select the Chinese you just activated.

Then in Illustrator or InDesign or Photoshop select a Chinese font once you have activate a text box and then paste, well make sure you have selected a Chinese font before pasting.

This will do it for you. If you want to Edit the text in Chinese use the Chinese input console which is a gui character selector.