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I was working on a logo design for a client in Illustrator Cs4 when suddenly the default brushes were no longer there. The brush files are still in place but they do not show up in the brushes panel. The options to show the brushes by type are checked but greyed out.

I need your help illustrator jedi you're my only hope. How do I fix this problem?

(p.s. preference resets don't fix it.)

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What happens when you load new brush libraries? – Farray Jun 2 '12 at 0:49
I haven't tried any new brushes because the brush I needed was in the stock set. I know its bad form not to try everything but I needed one of the stock brushes to tweak an existing design. – skids89 Jun 2 '12 at 3:08
It's not just bad form not to try things, but it impedes others' ability to help. If you can't load any brush libraries, that may be a different problem than if only the default brushes are missing. This question may not have enough information to be answerable... – Farray Jun 4 '12 at 20:49
Did you try to reïnstall the files in the folder (usually by double-clicking them)? Did this problem occur after an Adobe update? – poepje Jun 14 '12 at 9:38
Double clicking the files does not work. No no recent updates. – skids89 Jun 16 '12 at 1:10

2 Answers

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When you open raster images, and sometimes PDF files via Illustrator, the files open without any of the stock libraries. This is because the files don't contain the information about the stock libraries, including the brush library.

It's exceptionally rare for stock brushes to just "disappear". It's far more common for a user to open a file and simply not have the brushes loaded.

If you need the default brushes back there are a couple things you can do.

  • Select all and Copy. Then open a new document and paste. The new document will contain the default brush set.

or

  • From the Brush Panel menu choose Open Brush Library... > Other Library... Then navigate to any illustrator file containing the brushes and open it. You can even open a new document, save it, then use that to navigate to via the Brush Panel and load as a library.
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There's a default action that clears all unused styles, swatches, and brushes. That's another way to lose the stock set. I always delete the stock stuff by default then add back what I need.

At any time, you can access all the Adobe defaults with the Brush Library fly-out menu in the panel.

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