CS5 Pasting Problem 1

[Lyell]

I’m following a tutorial on CS5 and can’t get something to work. I want to make a guide out of a curved path – a heart. I have two layers: one contains the drawing with the sublayer containing the heart; the other layer contains all my guides as sublayers. I select the drawing sublayer that contains the heart and copy it. I go to my guides layer and select the sublayer I want to insert the heart in front of. Then I go to Edit > Paste in front. But instead of pasting in front of the guide sublayer selected, the heart is placed as the first sublayer of the drawing layer.

I can get the effect I want by using the drawing mode Draw Behind and selecting a different sublayer, but I can’t get it to work using Paste in Front. BTW, the same thing happens when I try Paste in Back or Paste in Place, or CtrlV – the heart always appears in the drawing layer, not the guide layer.

All my guides are unlocked, both in the layers panel and in the view menu. I’m not using smart guides. The drawing mode is set to Draw Normal. I can’t find anything to change in Preferences would seem to relate to this problem. I can’t figure out any other modes or menu options to check. I’m sure I’ve got “something” “somewhere” set differently than the tutorial, but I can’t figure out what.

 

[apepp]

...it can be easier to simply select the circle "O" symbol right hand side of a layer or object...

...you will then see a color square, click on that and hold down the "alt/option" key (a plus "+" symbol will display on your mouse cursor), then simply drag to another layer, resulting in exactly the same position and duplicated...

...you can do this for groups of items too, and also to copy appearances onto other objects or layers (circle "O" symbol with dark fill)...

...what you are trying to do is just click on the target layer, but what you need to do is click on the circle "O" symbol of the target layer then paste in front because you have items activated on the previous layer, so instead activate an item on the target layer or deselect all before pasting onto the target layer...

...this has been the way illustrator has functioned for some time, although annoying at times, you have to ensure you don't have objects selected on a previous layer to paste onto a target layer...

...you will find it easier in many instances to just use the "alt/option" method in the layers palette directly when dealing with multi-layered artwork...

andrew

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http://www.apepp.info

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[apepp]

...I forgot to also mention...

...another area to be watchful of is the "paste remembers layers" option in the
flyout menu of the layers palette, ensure this is off too when using paste commands...


andrew

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http://www.apepp.info

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[Lyell]

Thanks, Andrew, I do know those ways of moving an object, and have used them in CS4. But you've solved my problem:
I had Paste remembered layers turned on, as I usually do. When I turned it off, I could duplicate the results of the tutorial.

So I thank you very much. Problem solved, and I learned something new about layers.

Regards,
Lyell