updating symbols imported from Illustrator

[joel_f]

hi~
i'm using cs3 and have created an illustrator drawing and made symbols in illustrator so that i can import them into flash. i have successfully imported the drawing into flash but now i've gone back and edited the drawing in illustrator. is there a way i can just update the symbols i've changed rather than having to reimport the whole drawing?

[CyanBlue]

Howdy and Welcome... :)

I don't have CS3 with me, so I don't know if this works or not, but try to see if it works...
Go to the Library window, open it up and locate the Illustrator file you have imported... Right click on that and see if there is 'Update' command... I know I can do that update with audio & image files, but I have not tried that with the Illustrator file...

[joel_f]

thanks for the reply...

i checked that and it doesn't give you that option (see image). when you import an ai file it creates a folder structure in the library with the assets in it. the assests do have the update option enabled but i couldn't find the part that got updated among them. it seems like it would've been great if the .ai asset could have the update option enabled and it would just go and update all the symbols that were in imported in.

what i did to overcome this was to reimport the whole ai file then go in and do a swap symbol. you have to do it for every symbol that was imported if you want them all your instances to attached to the symbols in the new folder. just seems kind of a pain and wondered if there was an easier way.

[BernzSed]

Oh, that's too bad you already did it. There actually is a way around that.


If you have two symbols in different folders in the library, both with the same name, you can replace one symbol with the other by dragging it into the same folder. You can do that with multiple symbols at once, too.

[joel_f]

ah, so just import the symbol that got changed and then move it from the new folder it is imported to into the existing folder where all your symbols are located?

do you need to update any of the other assets?