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Good afternoon!
We need a handful of computers in our company to be able to view ".ai" files via hyperlinks in network-located Excel spreadsheets. As these are not designer stations, these computers do not have Adobe Illustrator, so they must open these files with Acrobat Reader DC.
The issue: When clicking the hyperlink, Excel will throw the error - "No program is registered to open this file."
Steps we have taken:
So at this point we are feeling really stuck. We are loyal Adobe Creative Cloud customers - but when we reached out to Live Chat support they referred me to this forum. I've noticed several other tickets about similar issues but with no resolution.
Any insight or guidance will be so appreciated by us!
Thanks!
PS: Here are links to other similar forum posts:
"No program is registered to open this file."
PDF does not remain in the Registered file types list
Hyperlinks to PDF files with Excel XP will not open on Acrobat
Hyperlink does not open pdf file
Excel 2013 hyperlinks to pdf files
None of these posts led to a solution.
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Please see this thread with the answer from Dov Isaacs to see if it answers your question:
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Thanks so much Jane-e! How cool that Dov chimed in personally to answer. I totally understand all these points, and actually have worked with Illustrator and PDF files for about 15 years. Our problem is different computers having different results with the same set-up, so far seemingly inexplicably so!
We open .ai files all the time with Adobe Reader for quick reference of the contents of Illustrator files, or, as in our current situation, so production/assembly staff can view renderings of artwork easily with the click of a link. We have two staff members whose computer do this beautifully and with no complication - it simply opens the .ai file in Reader. The other computers throw the "no program registered" error.
Really appreciate both you and try67 chiming in!
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Hi Brandon,
We have established that this is a bad workflow, but let’s proceed. I think you are on Windows, so there are two things to try:
~ Jane
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Hi Jane,
Thanks again for your response. I did forget to mention that we have already gone through the steps of directly opening the .ai file with Acrobat Reader, and telling Windows to always open it with Acrobat Reader. I have also checked the "File association" settings to ensure that .ai files were set to be opened with Acrobat Reader. And indeed, the .ai file will open successfully in any of the following manners:
Thanks so much for the help - would be so good to get to the bottom of why this error pops up from within Excel only...! 😃
Brandon
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Reader can't open ".ai" files, only PDFs. You will need to install Adobe Illustrator to be open to open them.
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Actually we've had a lot of luck opening .ai files with reader. There seems to be no issue with it - only when referenced via a hyperlink in Excel. Just so folks know that you can actually open .ai files with Reader 😃
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You're right, actually, it is possible... I stand corrected.