Tips to get a Prism graph into Adobe Illustrator.
We have no involvement in the development of Adobe Illustrator or its potential future improvements, but our customers have alerted us to the issues listed below. Please let us know if you learn anything that would be useful to others. Notes:
- Issues may depend on whether you use Mac or Windows, and can vary with different versions of Prism and Illustrator
- All the issues listed here are about pasting or importing vector/font based formats, which can then be (sort of) edited in Illustrator. If you export from Prism as a bit map (tiff or jpg), there will be no issues bringing into Illustrator, but you will not be able to directly edit individual components of the graph
- We don't formally "support" the interaction of Illustrator with Prism, but simply pass along what our customers have told us in this FAQ
MAC
We are told that everything works fine when the latest version of Prism is used with Illustrator CC (20.0.0 // 2015.3.0) on Mac OS X 10.11.6 or later. It works by copy-paste, or by dragging a Prism graph title from the Navigator on the left of Prism and dropping into Illustrator. The entire graph is pasted as set of ungrouped objects, all selected. You can then work on them individually, or group them in Illustrator.
Can't paste from Prism 5 Mac to Illustrator CS2 or CS3
Illustrator CS2 and CS3 does not work well with Leopard's clipboard. Graphics copied from Prism (or from Apple Keynote or from Apple Preview, which proves the problem is not with GraphPad Prism) cannot be pasted. We hope that Adobe or Apple will fix the problem, as it is not a problem within Prism.
Here is one thing to try. If you are saying Select All before you copy and paste, this might be the problem. Just use the regular Copy command (or button, or keyboard shortcut),and everything will be copied. There is no need to first use the Select All command, and in some cases using that command will prevent anything from being copied.
There is another easy workaround. From Prism export as a PDF file (a new feature in Prism 5). Then import this file into Illustrator. This works fine. The clipboard image IS a pdf file, so the end result is identical to copy and paste, but export and import takes a few extra steps.
This problem only occurs when you use OSX 10.5 Leopard (not 10.4 Tiger) and only with Illustrator CS2 and CS3 (not earlier versions).
Fonts and text are mangled after importing into Illustrator
If you use the Place command to insert a EPS file created by Prism 5 Mac into Illustrator CS3, the text can be jumbled. There are two workarounds. One is to to use the Open command rather than the Place command (within Illustrator). The other is to export (from Prism) a PDF file, rather than an EPS file.
CS3 can sometimes have problems when a Prism graph mixes different fonts, or includes both italicized and bold text. We have reported this bug to Apple and Adobe. The files appear fine in Preview, so there does not seem to be a bug in Prism.
Illustrator 11 always seems to have trouble with text in Prism pdf or eps files. Newer versions of Illustrator work fine, so all we can do is suggest you update.
See this page from Adobe about a problem with the Arial Narrow font.
Can't ungroup a Prism graph pasted into Illustrator on Mac OSX:
Ungrouping doesn't usually work, but a related command "Release Clipping Mask" does. Select the graph (or select all), right click and choose Release Clipping Mask. It often helps to repeat a few times. It may help to first ungroup and then release the clipping mask. After releasing the clipping mask, select everything and choose Path --> Clean Up. Prism sometimes includes some invisible objects, and this command gets rid of them.
Try Paste Special
Prism 4 put a vector based PICT file on the clipboard. With Prism 5, we switched to the new Mac standard, pdf. After Prism puts a pdf image on the clipboard, OSX also creates a bitmap picture. The program that pastes, can choose which version to paste. That should be easy as the pdf version is more compact, looks better, and can be scaled to any size. But some programs paste the picture. We're not sure which versions of Illustrator use which clipboard format. Use Edit...Paste special in Illustrator to choose.
When you rescale the graph, the axes thickness and line thickness don’t scale.
In Illustrator CS5.1 (and maybe other versions), can go to Illustrator > Preferences > General, and check the option “Scale Strokes and Effects” box.
Instead of copy/paste, use export/import in pdf format
When you copy, Prism places the image on the clipboard in vector-font pdf format. OS X then makes a low-resolution bit-map which it also places on the clipboard. The pasting program can then decide which version to paste. The idea is all modern programs paste the pdf version and ancient programs paste the bitmap. But older versions of Illustrator pastes the bitmap, when used with OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). You can try to use paste special to tell Illustrator to use pdf. Or you can just skip the clipboard. From Prism, export as pdf (or maybe eps). Then in Illustrator, open that file, or import it.
An alternative
Take a look at Affinity Designer. It seems to handle Prism graphs very well.
WINDOWS
TIP: Instead of copy/pasting, export the graph from Prism in PDF format and import that file.
Some people have told us this works better than copy/paste.
TIP: Use the older form of the EMF format (Prism 6 and later)
The File&Printer tab of Prism's preference dialog (since 6.02) lets you choose between copying graphs to the clipboard as EMF+ or EMF (old) or WMF. In theory, the EMF+ enhanced format is better. With Illustrator, this is not the case. Some people find the old EMF works (the only format used by Prism 5) is much better. Others find that WMF works best. But the newer "better" EMF+ format seems to work worse with Illustrator.
Tip: Check the option to export outlines.
In the export dialog, check the 'Outlines' radio button. This means text will get exported as vectors and graphics, not as characters in fonts.
Also try the EPS format
Instead of copy and pasting, try exporting from Prism as an EPS file and then inserting into Illustrator.
When pasting a graph from Prism into Illustrator, you get the message "The operation cannot complete because of an unknown error".
This happens only when you choose certain symbols in Prism. The first thing to try is to simply OK the message. In some cases, the graph is pasted fine. If that doesn't work, go back to Prism and use standard symbols (open or closed squares, circles, triangles, or dashes). Those will copy/paste fine. Also see the note above about using EMF(old) rather than EMF+ format.
Graphs pasted from Prism 4 Windows into Illustrator 11 look bad:
One person told us that it only worked well when the Preference for format of copying to the clipboard was set to EMF only (rather than WMF or both EMF and WMF). Set this on the File&printer tab of the Edit..Preferences dialog.
Another person found this solution (with Illustrator 10 -- don't know if it would work with other versions): Export from Prism as a EMF file, and open with Illustrator (copy and pasting should work too if Preferences are set to copy as EMF, and you paste into an empty document). In Illustrator, Select All (Edit menu), then Ungroup (object menu), then select Clipping Mask: Release. Finally, Select All and Group (Object menu). If you want to combine the Prism graph with other stuff (the whole reason for using Illustrator), you can now copy and paste into Illustrator document.
Can't copy and paste into Illustrator 9 Windows
One customer told us that it is essentially impossible to copy and paste from Prism into Illustrator 9 (Windows). If you set the preference to copy WMF format, nothing gets pasted. If you set the preference to copy EMF format, the graph is incomplete in some cases (especially bar graphs). These problems appear to be bugs in Illustrator 9, not Prism. The workaround is to export and then import. Export in WMF format, and it will work well. EMF might also work.
Some labels in a graph are gray instead of black when importing many graphs within a layout in EPS format.
There seems to be a problem with pure black color when exporting to EPS sometimes. The workaround is simple. Make the black color for labels a bit lighter. For this, go to the Color dialog for labels and set "1" for Red, Green, and Blue (they are all zero in true black). It will still look black, but now the exporting should go smoothly.
If you use any semitransparent colors in Prism 7, don't transfer EPS files
EPS files cannot encode semitransparent colors. Use PDF or TIFF instead.
Bug: If you export from Prism 7.02 to pdf, then import to Illustrator, you get a message "This document uses fonts that are not currently available on your computer" and "Type kit is temporarily not available".
This is only a problem with PDF files. Export from Prism as EPS, and Illustrator imports without problem. EPS and PDF contain the same information, so there is no drawback to using EPS. We saw this problem with Illustrator 2017 (v 21.0.0), but have not tested other versions.
Line thicknesses can change
When you set thickness for objects (axes, borders, etc.), export graph to EMF, EMF+, EPS, PDF or WMF file, then open it in Adobe Illustrator CC, line thickness choice in Illustrator and Prism will be different - like 6 pt in Prism and 5.04 pt in Illustrator, or 0.25 pt vs. 0.72 pt. We are not sure why this happens and we don't know of any workaround.