Since I can’t upload a screenshot due to a glitch that has been reported in another thread, I’ll try to describe what happens with copy and paste in the design area. If you copy and paste an image or text, the new image does not appear in the same location as the original, it’s always offset to the right and down a bit. You have to first fiddle around to line it up with the original object if you wanted it in the same position horizontally but not vertically for instance. Shouldn’t paste be an exact duplicate AND in the same location as the original?
Ahh yes, I did notice this last night and for some reason didn’t even think about it. You are right!
We’ve gone back and forth a few times with the behavior of pasting content. Each of the two methods we’ve employed comes with upsides and downsides.
Pasting into the same position: makes it easy to copy/paste content onto other sides of a product, but it’s harder to see when you’ve accidentally stacked multiple text/image objects on top of each other. This can result in public products being more difficult for customers to interact with because they’ll move the top image a bit to the right, but that will then reveal the image below it. Not a great experience.
Pasting into a slightly offset position: makes it easy to notice when content is successfully copy/pasted, but it does require an additional bit of work on the user’s end to ensure things are positioned properly.
Our team does periodically discuss this topic because it’s in our (collective) best interest to provide the easiest method for creating great products. I’ll pass this feedback along to them.
I’m moving this to General to collect additional feedback from anyone that would like to share them.
@Scott in my opinion it’s a much bigger issue to not have them line up than the fear of having a duplicate. In the thousands of products I’ve made, I think I’ve had less than 10 that had an accidental duplicate, and it was on an image only.
As a side note, if we had micro movements (like Canva) where we could just use arrows and such to move, it might help, but sometimes it’s hard to get things to line up how we want.
Thanks @Scott for explaining the reasoning behind this. Maybe we could have a special paste button just for designers called ‘Paste in Place’??? That would be ideal… keeps customers happy and us too!
In art programs (e.g., Inkscape), there’s often a separate paste function and a duplicate function (called “paste in place” in Illustrator). The distinction is that unlike paste, duplicate lays down a second one in the exact space, which is more useful for this type of object-manipulating Zazzle work. In Zazzle’s design tool, there’s a “duplicate” button, but it currently does an offset paste, which is not what I’d expect “duplicate” to do. Ideally, we’d have both functions available to use. (Edit: Oops, Barbara said this already, sorry!)
I checked Canva, and their duplicate function also does an offset paste, which is surprising. I checked Kittl, and theirs does a proper duplicate as expected.
I’d love to have that function added as well. In Illustrator, the shortcut for it is ctrl + f and I might’ve reflexively used that once or twice while working in the Zazzle design tool only to groan at myself when the Firefox search bar pops up ![]()
One more reason to not allow editing of designs. Too bad that isn’t an option to make it easier for creator to design. Let them edit or not one still has a hard time creating. I had a customer message me for help with one of my skateboards and I spent days answering questions and finding out how they could make a better purchase but I got less than 10% of the final sale. This makes me not want to help a customer but I just can’t do that. I still think we should be able to get credit where credit is due. Would I be better off just ignoring messages altogether ??? If not what gives me the incentive to spend hours making a happy customer? Just wondering.
I thought this was image offset a glitch and was waiting for a fix. The thing that worries me is concern about how the adjusted design will print. If I move the pasted image over and up to visually line up with the original image, will the images actually line up when printing? If I group the adjusted images to lock them, will they stay locked in place?
If Zazzle decides to continue offsetting the pasted image, please make an official announcement so people will be aware and include design correction details. I have to say, I’m not a fan of the offset. Please go back to the original copy and paste. It was so much easier and faster without having to manually correct every pasted image.