It does not work this way. You have to also select the artboard the copied art would grab its coordinates from BEFORE you copy. So if you select something but the artboard highlighted is not the one the selected art actually positioned at, it would remember the offset from the selected artboard — and pasted using this large value.
Not sure if I make it clear enough :)

Copy/ Paste in Place does not work. I selected an Artboard, but it never got pasted into the !selected! Artboard, but in any other artboard, the original Artboard, or outside. Illustrator 2025 29.1 MacBook Pro M2, 14.6.1 (23G93)

Still works randomly in both 28.7.2 and 29.0.1, no matter if you focus on the artboard.

Not working for me in two recent updates. Annoying as ****.

Agustin, I never wrote 'one should select a key object'. I meant 'one should make sure the proper artboard is focused when an artwork copied and pasted'... this is somewhat similar to key object mechanic, but is different.

Without choosing the proper artboard Ai can’t tell which PLACE you meant.
Changing Rulers should not matter.

I really wish to dig deeper though into this.
Can you figure out the exact steps that lead to a result you find buggy, please?

This issue persists. I've lost countless hours with this throughout many years, and each time I get more tired of it.

1) Egor has said that the steps mentioned by Rodrigo are intended. With all due respect, they shouldn't be. It's absurd that the user needs to select a key object from the selection before copying the whole thing so that Adobe can figure out the coordinates and paste in place on another artboard correctly. It should be as easy as copying, clicking another artboard and pasting in place.
2) Sometimes changing rulers to Artboard rulers works, but not all the time. It's astonishingly buggy. As many users had said, it even pastes on different places. Today I tried the same steps (changing to global rulers, changing back to artboard rulers, copying and pasting in place on another artboard) 4 times without luck and the 5th one magically worked. Same steps.

This has been a problem for years. As many users had said: it shouldn't be treated as intended because 1) It doesn't work regularly, it's buggy, and 2) a tedious workaround that people are considering counter-intuitive should never be "intended usage".

Please Adobe, fix it. Thank you for your time!

Have you figured it out?
In Illustrator it matters which artboard is active both times — when you copy and when you paste.
You have to make sure the artboard 1 has the black frame (which is hard to see with this dark background, I know) when you press Copy, and focus the one you want to paste to before you paste.

It might be a bug, but I am sure it’s just that. If you still can’t make it work (or on the contrary, can) — please reply.

As for the attachments — UV is paranoid. Ai-files often do get attached fine, zips though... sometimes renaming one to .txt helps.

I have the same issue. The solutions below are a bit complicated to remember and will only help those who came here to this thread and are now in possession of the below mentioned "gnostic knowledge". If I copy and then "paste in place" this should work without the user needing to remember these special procedures or "conditions".

But thank you very much ---> Jorge Rosillo <--- for finding the solution! I have been stuggling with this problem for the past two years now on a weekly basis. I thought it had something to do with group and non-group items, as grouping often fixed the issue.

If its possible to get Illustrator to understand copy and paste from one artboard to another without these special pre-conditions, then that would help make it more user friendly. If not, then we will simply have to deal with it and hope that the next time we use copy and paste across artboards, we actually remember all the necessary pre-conditions. Sorry for all the users who don't know about this special solution. They will not be able to use this feature. Tough luck hombres );

In all honesty, I do hope this will eventually get "fixed" and be treated as a bug. Because such behaviour cannot seriously be considered a workable solution "by design".

Thank you!

Cheers,
Walter

I am using version 27.0 on windows 10 and it's also not working well. Of course I am using older version of Illustrator that new one 2023 because of course as every new product of Adobe it must be full of problems and bugs. Paste in place gives a random pastes aside of artbords...

This fails for me. Illustrator 27.7. Feel like this has been an issue for years. Come on Adobe fix this. Right now, if I select all the artwork (even with Jorge's method below), it pastes in the art board NEXT TO the one I have selected. Now I restarted, and now it only pastes on top of the original artboard I selected from, not the one selected. Absurd. At least I can duplicate artbaords in this instance, but... this time. Please, fix!

The solution that Jorge suggested below works for me, even on objects that hang outside the board.

When drawing the box around the objects to select them, you can start off board, but you have to end on board, if that makes sense. Then you can paste on another artboard like butter.
As long as you don't have global rulers on, of course.

I just stumbled onto this topic.
'Paste In Place' always works fine for me. But I think something is forgotten in this thread since no one mentioned it. The rulers need to be for the artboards, and not for the entire document.
So, go to 'View > Rulers > Change To Artboard Rulers'.
'Paste In Place' should work fine now.

Depending on the template your file is based on the rulers may use different coordinates. So; check them. And reset them to fit your needs.

Thank you for your comment and explanation Egor!

And while I get what you are saying, since I'm a bit familiar with the program, it is something I didn't really experience before my first comment, thus, the necesity for asking what's going on.

Lastly, the intention of my last response (which I posted sometime earlier, but seamed people were getting the same "problem", and didn't picked up on my "workaround" as you mentioned) was just to let people know how I do it so it may help somebody, instead of just saying whatever other things.

Thank you anyway for your concern Egor!

Jorge, it is not a 'workaround', it is an intended way it works :D

Ai remembers the local coordinates of an art copied, relative to the current artboard, and pastes it using these coordinates, into the other selected artboard. If one accidentally makes another artboard selected before copying, it surely picks up different coords.

But I get the frustration, it is exhausting to always make sure the proper tiny frame is black.
Thank for sharing the extensive instructions!

I found a "solution" to this problem, I concluded that the problem it´s due to some sort of trouble with the coordinates inside an illustrator file with multiple artboards, plus some problem with the act of selecting an object.

So what I´m doing is the following:

if selecting all the objects in an artboard, with the selection tool, click-drag to select all objects from outside the artboard > click any object INSIDE the artboard (as if selecting a key object, which is gonna happen) > then CMND/CTRL+C or CMND/CTRL+X to copy or cut objects > go to target artboard and click inside it > without clicking anywhere else, CMND/CTRL+F/B to paste either at the bottom or in front of everything.

and that's how I resolved it, this applies either if you are coping/cutting-pasting into a single file with multiple artboards or if you are doing so from a tab to another, and of course, when doing this both artboards must be the same size.

Let me know if this helped you!

Paste In Place, Paste in Front, and Paste in Back no longer work for me - the objects are pasted in seemingly random positions, rather than keeping the original placement.

Running Illustrator 2023 v27.2 on M1 Macbook Air running Ventura 13.0.1

The quick solution I found, is...

Before you copy your art, just create a "new" random object (square, circle, whatever works) in the same art you want to copy, then select the art with the selection tool or layer selection, and then Paste in Place or Paste in Front/back of the new art and then just delete the object you created.

It worked for me, I have tried many things, but this is the easier solution, not the best, but works every time.
Also Rebooting the computer works too, it seen to be something with the X and Y of the artworks and temporally files.

This is still an issue. Has anyone found a solution? @Adobe is this being worked on? A new/unique shortcut would help.

Same for me. It usually takes few undos and repeated pasting in place in order to function. Most of the times it pastes objects to upper left corner of the artboard. Really annoying.

Same for me. Paste in Place is broken. It randomly works.

Same ole same ole