I'm having a lot of trouble understanding how Adobe Illustrator (CS6) manages character styles imported from different ai documents. If I create all character styles in a single .ai document and only use them in in that document, everything works as expected--colors, fonts, and typography settings are maintained in the character style, and newly added text can be quickly styled with the character style.
My trouble starts when i want to re-use those character styles in a new .ai document. From the character style menu I use the option to import the character styles from another document, and they import correctly--all of the styles work and style text as expected. But then i save & close the document and re-open it to find that the character style entries are there, but the fills and strokes are all messed up--fonts, sizes, typography settings are maintained, but styles with a blue fill are suddenly filed with black, or some other color.
So, why is this happening? This happens even if the swatches associated with the character styles are imported to the new document as well. I've read that all character styles are based off of the 'normal' character style. But, i've tried a test making sure that the 'normal' character style was consistent between the two documents and i've still experienced the issue.
Here's a short video showing the issue i'm experiencing: http://youtu.be/Z-BG7miwib8 (watch at 720p)
Any insights as to what i'm doing wrong would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks!
