Error opening illustration (Misplaced Operator?)

[ppg3412]

Greetings all,

I'm having a bit of trouble opening an important AI file containing 2 versions of the same logo; one English, and the other Japanese.

I last accessed it a few days ago, and now I get this message when I try to open it:

------------------------------
Can't open the illustration. The illustration contains an illegal or misplaced operator.

Offending Operator: "Unicode"
Context:

0 0 0 1 0 0 0 Xa
0 1 0 0 0 Xy
0 J 0 j 1 w 4 M []0 d
0 XR
% 0 50 XQ
/ _Arial Unicode
------------------------------

I can't find anything about this on the net. Perhaps someone has found, or knows of a solution?

Thanks in Advance.

 

[gmac013]

I am having a similar problem. I have copied my files from my Mac to my PPC and i get the error "Can't open the illustration. The illustration contains an illegal or misplaced operator".

How did you resolve yoru problem?

-gmac013

 

[gmac013]

I am having a similar problem. I have copied my files from my Mac to my PC and i get the error "Can't open the illustration. The illustration contains an illegal or misplaced operator".

How did you resolve yoru problem?

-gmac013

 

[Triska]

If either of you would post your Illustrations on the web... I'll open them and see if there's anything I can do. However, it looks like something where you may need to edit the .AI file in a text editor... fairly difficult stuff without considerable knowledge... but AFTER saving a copy... fooling around in the .AI (.pdf basically) won't hurt anything.

If possible... (this sounds like a font issue) can you resave the .AI as an .EPS. This should retain most features... see what you think.


Sef.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com

 

[JDot]

I have been having this same problem "Can't open the illustration - misplaced or illegal etc...) and am at a loss as to what to do - has anyone found out what to do? I have reinstalled, increased memory, run disk doc, etc. Fonts may be the problem. I have had to recreate work and will be in big trouble if it keeps occuring. I am losing files.
THANK YOU

 

[Triska]

The specific 'operator' that is offensive in the FIRST post is 'Unicode'...

Make sure that the same version of Arial Unicode (arialuni.ttf) is installed and active on the machine opening the file.

NOTE: Arial Unicode is a *** 23 MB *** Font ! and contains glyphs for many, many languages all in one.

This may NOT be the problem related to the subsequent posts, unless Arial Unicode is mentioned....

Sef.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com

 

[puertas]

This problem has happened to me as well with the only difference that it happened when I was installing Indesign. The system crashed and I could no longer access files I was working on. Somehow when I restarted the system it had created HTML files of the documents. I could view them in a browser, they had the ai file embeded but I couldn't open the ai file because of the 'illegal or misplaced operator'. How can you edit the file in a text editor? What software do I need?
Any answers would be appreciated.

 

[gmac013]

Please go to:

http://gmac--013.tripod.com/error.gif

and let me know if this is the same error that you are getting.

Thanks,

gmac

 

[askIllustrator]

Here are a couple of tricks that work sometimes:
1. open the file on a PC (they tend skip over these type of errors rather than hanging up on them)
2. Drag the icon into an open document window
3. Import the file into acrobat or distill it.
4. (PC only) rename the file with a .pdf or .eps and open with another app like acrobat.

If none of that works I have gotten lucky once or twice by opening the file in a text editor and comparing the header to that of a known working file and checking for entrys that might not have anything next to em or pasting over the entrys in question.

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Einstein

 

[Triska]

Great advice,
and to an earlier post,

http://www.textpad.com

is an excellent text editor that supports Regular Expression Replacing, syntax highlighting, and much more.

I use it for all things text, and all HTML coding (along w/ dreamweaver)

Sef.

It is alright to decorate construction, but never construct decoration. - Pugin, on Arch.

http://www.elucidesign.com