Running Illustrator 29.3 on MacOS Sonoma 14.7.4.

Out of the blue, two things started happening whenever I tried to paste things:

1. Live text elements would convert to outlines
2. Gradient meshes would paste as rasterized images

I did everything all the other similar threads suggested, especially in regard to background apps like Raycast causing problems with the clipboard. I disabled and/or shut down every app that interacts with the clipboard aside from the standard copy/paste function. Everything was the same as it was before the issue began—no new apps, plugins, extensions, etc.. I tried all the different paste actions—in place, in front, behind—to no avail. I could still ALT/Option-Drag to duplicate things without issue. It's only when pasting from the clipboard that the issue occurs.

I found a solution in unchecking "Include SVG Code" in the Illustrator settings. Everything began working as usual after I unchecked that box. This won't affect my day-to-day, so it works for me. However, that box has been checked for years without issue. I'm thinking a new bug was introduced in a recent version of Illustrator to cause it to malfunction. I don't know what exactly triggered the issue, however.

Paul, there are two things you can try with Paste:
1. In Illustrator, open Preferences > Clipboard Handling, and disable Include SVG Code. With no SVG data present, the Paste app can prefer the raw Ai data given back when pasted
2. Write to Paste dev team! Say them it doesn’t play along when choosing a stream from the clipboard. Explain this to them, with a video shared — perhaps they do care?

Thanks for all the information! I had this same "Copying and pasting text turns it to outlines" issue too in Ai 25 and 24. I was running a little multi-clipboard 'Extention' app called 'Paste' that turned out to be the conflict. I shut it down and the problem immediately went away. Whew! Unfortunately, Paste was literally at the top of my list of "Can't live without" apps.

As I ran into this Issue today and had to do some testing by opening and closing my applications, I just wanted to add the deepl application on macOS.

Just in case there are more people out there wondering about this strange behaviour. I've never had to deal with something like that until today.

@Mark, thanks for the update. Yep, these are the most problematic. It feels like they strip the part from the buffer data Ai uses for text, leaving only the graphic part of it. I bet there is nothing Ai can do about it :/ The only solution would be to find a manager that don’t alter the data and keep all of it. I wonder if anyone was able to find a proper one (for each platform).

I had the same issue and realized it's going to be a software conflict with a clipboard utility.

In my case it was Raycast, the Clipboard History plugin. Disabling it solved the problem. (Interestingly this affected Illustrator 2024 but not 2023.)

Clipy is another program that causes this to happen. Simply add Illustrator to the exclude list in Clipy's settings.

The same as
"Gradient stroke cannot be cut and pasted"
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/40332055

Preferences > Clipboard Handling options are the same for both 26 and 27

I also checked on my old Mac mini 2012 (Mac OS Catalina) on an Intel processor, and it works without this bug.

@Eric, nope, I don’t use Launchbar, but it’s nice for them to have an option like this! Thank you for posting it here, perhaps it can help others to fix the problem, if it ever happens for them.

@Paul, I can’t confirm it. The text gets copied just fine, stays live and retains its appearance. If it has a style (you text does not, but I reapplied the one you have saved) — it gets added to Styles in a new doc.
So perhaps it’s something else but Illustrator still?
Try to disable / close other apps, helpers, launchpads/launchbars, end try to see who else deals with the buffer. Also try to juggle options in Clipboard section in Preferences first, just to be sure.

Dragging the text into the new document works and keeps the text editable, but won't place it exactly in the same position and the graphic style is not copied over. Using Ctrl-V loses the graphic style and the editable text.

Egor,
are you using launchbar by chance? if so, go into the settings for it and then to clipboard settings. under the edit for applications to ignore, add illustrator and it will fix it.

I would think that when I copied the text with the graphic style, the graphic style would also be copied over into the new document and the text would remain editable. The graphic style doesn't copy over and each letter is converted to compound paths of individual letters and grouped.

I'm having this issue with Illustrator 2023 (27.0.1) on macOS 12.5.1, where if I have editable text in one document with a Graphic Style applied to it and then I copy the text block into a new blank document, all the text will be converted to outlines and grouped instead of keeping it as editable text. I would like the text to remain editable.

Yep, please do!
I've heard of another cases like this, and perhaps some changes can be done from their side. I know nothing about any changes form Ai side about handling the buffer.
Comment back with this, if and when you have a reply.

ok, since this has worked for years and years, either a change was made in illustrator or launchbar.

I will reach out to the develop of that to bring it o attention, but there is a conflict that has opened up after working for at least 10 years together.

!!! I think we found the culprit !!!

I use an app called launchbar, and it does handle some clipboard items. I just quit it and opened the document and copied and pasted, and it worked as expected.

so launchbar is conflicting with AI it seems. hope that helps.

Eric, do you by any chance use a clipboard manager of any kind? Something that operates with the buffer content in any way?

It's out of my hands now, Eric. Thanks for the email! If anything clear comes out of this, someone form the team will post an update here. Let's hope they find out something.