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Eddie_13
Participant
February 20, 2020
Question

InDesign Unused Images Notifcation

  • February 20, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1046 views

Hi all,

 

This relates to creating photobooks in Indesign. I have all the photos the InDesign document needs to contain in a single Windows folder. Does anyone know if there a way to see which images are not used in the InDesign document (ideally in real time, rather than a pre-flight data to excel and comparison type check).

 

Online photobook solutions using their own software offer an image gallery view, with used images greyed out or hidden for instance, which makes it very easy to identify images still to be used.

 

Many Thanks,

Eddie

 

 

 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Luke Jennings
Inspiring
February 21, 2020

Package the InDesign file to collect the links.

Open the packaged links folder, select all the links and give them a label color (right click on a Mac).

Move the links back into the original links folder and select "replace"

All the non-color labeled links have not been used.

Eddie_13
Eddie_13Author
Participant
February 28, 2020

Hi Luke,

Thanks I will try that, I like how there would be a visual indicator in the InDesign.

BobLevine
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 20, 2020
No, nor is there any need.

But if it's that important to you, find the InDesign file in Bridge, right click and choose "Show Linked Files."

>From there you could create a Smart Collection containing only the images that are in the file.
Eddie_13
Eddie_13Author
Participant
February 20, 2020

Hi Bob, thanks for your reply, apologies for not being clearer.

In this instance there is definitely a need, as I want to ensure all the images in the folder end up in the document or at least have a list of whats missing that can be reviewed to see if they do still need inclusion.

 

In the course of compiling the document I am obviously adding, rearranging and removing images so its hard to keep track of whats ultimately missing (the folder contains hundreds of images). Your suggestion of the smart collection is helpful for establishing whats there and I could use this to manually check it against the folder contents. I was just hoping for a way to automatically display whats missing rather than whats there.

 

If no inbuilt display is available I think there is a probably a way I can import a list of the folder contents and a list of the Indesign contents into excel and compare. Or change my workflow to moving images into another 'used' folder prior to adding to the InDesign and moving it back to the 'unused' folder if later removed, though this is not ideal. I am just surprised such a feature doesnt seem to exist.

 

Thanks

Legend
February 20, 2020

Hi Eddie,

 

It might be a bit overkill but give this code a try......Note: currently the script looks into the Links folder and will return the names of any files not placed or linked to the active documnet from that location,  you will need to modify the file path for Windows and where your files reside.

 

 

 

myDocFolder = app.activeDocument.filePath;
var myLinkAssetsFolder = Folder(myDocFolder.fsName + "/" + "Links"); 
var myFiles = myLinkAssetsFolder.getFiles();

function myGetFileNames(){
    var myFileNames = new Array;
     for (var i = 0; i < myFiles.length; i++){  
      myFileNames.push(myFiles[i].name);
  }
   
      return myFileNames;
  }

var myLinkName = new Array();
myLinks = app.activeDocument.links;
for(var i=0; i < myLinks.length; i++){
myLinkName.push(myLinks[i].name);
}

var fileNames = myGetFileNames();
var myLinks = myLinkName;

function myGetFilesToPlace(){
  var myLinkedNames = myLinks;
  var myFileList = new Array ();
   for (var i = 0; i < fileNames.length; i++){
    if(!String(myLinkedNames).match("\\b"+fileNames[i]+"\\b")) {   
      myFileList.push(fileNames[i]);

    }
 }
    return myFileList;
}
var filesToPlace = myGetFilesToPlace();
filesToPlace = (String(filesToPlace).replace(/%20/g, " "));
alert(filesToPlace)

 

 

 

Regards,

Mike