Drag & Drop into an existing file

[Jeremy Bohn]

I guess you can't just drag and drop an image from the desktop onto an open file. Last night I tried it, and by all appearances it LOOKS like it's going to be added to my document because the cursor changes to a big green plus. But what actually happens is Publisher opens the image as a new document. This is completely unexpected and not even how macOS works. Drag and drop onto the app icon means open the file. Drag and drop onto an open document means you're adding it to the open document. Perhaps it might make sense in Photo, but not in Publisher.

Unless I'm doing something wrong, the behaviour should be changed: drag & drop = place image in open file.

[RM f/g]

I noticed this:

Drag and drop image on document = place

Drag and drop image on pasteboard = open

[Jeremy Bohn]

Okay I'll have to try again and watch where I'm dropping the file.

UPDATE: ya you're right. Strange!

[kimtorch]

I'm curious why they have this behaviour. We will often drag an image to the pasteboard before placing it properly. It seems totally counter-intuitive and I can't think of any other application that does this.

[Jeremy Bohn]

Exactly!

[Fixx]

Maybe devs thought it is handy to have two different behaviours easily accessed.

[powsimian]

I think the two behaviours are both easily enough accessed by the distinction between dragging into your open tab and dragging to the app icon on the dock. This is extremely confusing. I have about 40 artboards open right now and for the first 30 I could easily drag in the .png background. I couldn't really tell why once in a while it would open the file in its own tab, but it worked. Now it opens a new tab every time and I can't tell why? The green plus's presence doesn't make a difference. I can't help but wonder who would drag anything onto an open artboard or pasteboard and wants it to open in a new document? What logic is that?

[powsimian]

Here's a tip though, it's not as useful as drag and drop. If you copy the file from Finder and paste it in the artboard you can get almost the same result. The filename is no longer assigned to the Layer though, unfortunately.

[Jeremy Bohn]

I just encountered this odd behaviour again and I really think they need to change it. I drew a circular photo frame but my main document was crowded so I dragged it onto the pasteboard. From Finder, I dragged the required photo over the photo frame. The frame highlighted in pink, as if ready to receive the photo. But all that happened was the photo opening in a new tab. The fact that the photo frame is even highlighting says to me that it's not expected behaviour. Devs, can you please comment?