Breaking link of indesign files added as Links

Hi everyone,

I’m facing a situation that could potentially make me crazy and I’d appreciate your insights.

Ideally, I’d like to « break the link and pull the content » with an Indesign file that’s visible in the Links panel. However, we can’t do this natively. So, what are my options?

Statement :

I understand that Indesign files are complex files and are probably more similarly dealt with like graphics files. We can’t break a link with a graphic; we can only modify or delete it. But since both are in the Indesign ecosystem (the link and the active document), I’m wondering if there’s anything we can do. Most likely, it would involve scripting, which is fine. But where should I start, and what would be the strategy here?

Here’s what I have:

- I have a 300+ document that uses 177 Indesign files as links.
- The file needs to be translated.

Indesign limitations :

The issue is that Indesign files as links are not directly editable, unlike a .docx file. So, I have to export them one at a time for translation. I could easily script something to export them as IDML and inject them into our CAT software (Computer Aided Translation Software), but it would mean having to deal with an extra 177 files and maintain the structure of the Indesign file as is. Indesign files as links are nowhere near a viable option for me; it brings too many issues to the table.

In a perfect world, I’d like to break the link with the ID file, which would pull the content within the active document. This is what happens with .docx files linked.

Quick and dirty option:

- I could manually edit each link (177 of them… I’d prefer not to go on that path).
- I could copy/paste the content from the original textframe into the active document.

And then comes scripting, and an idea:

- Would it be possible to run a script that does:

- Look for an .indd as a link.
- Identify the textframe parent.
- Open the .indd link.
- Copy the entire content of the file into the pasteboard.
- Close the file.
- Clean the textframe parent and paste from the pasteboard.

Cleaning the textframe would certainly delete the .indd file from the Links panel (which is fine), and the script would help me get the content I need.

Has anyone faced a similar situation? Do you have any other solutions in mind?

Thanks for your insights, or even just reading me till the end ^^