ASK MORDY: Placing Multiple Files

David Nauen writes:

Hello, thanks for your helpful blog -- would you happen to know whether it is possible to place multiple files into illustrator simultaneously? I am batch-generating many .eps files and I would like to place them all into a single illustrator file for manipulation. I can place each file individually but it would be very much faster if there were a way to place all the files at once.

While Illustrator lacks the totally cool multi-place feature found in InDesign CS3, there is a way to place multiple files at once into an existing Illustrator document.

From Adobe Bridge, the Finder on Mac OS, or from any Windows Explorer window, drag a file right onto your Illustrator artboard. You can also use this method to select multiple files and place them all at once. Using this method, Illustrator place-links the files. To place-embed images while dragging them into your document, hold the Shift key while dragging the images.

When dragging images from Bridge, an icon indicates a preview showing all of the images you're about to place.