template document automatically repopulating links when they need to remain broken

Question

Our company works on large scale campaigns every quarter and on our network server we have a series of folders that we will copy across at the start of each camapgin. These folders contain indesign files that link to pdfs so we can provide a summary to the client of what we are producing.

The pdf links within these indesign files stay the same every time so the idea is that you copy them across with the broken links and then they repopulate once you have completed the campaign and you have created new pdfs.

One of these templates however keeps finding the links to our current campaign in our working folder (seperate server) meaning that once its copied over next time - the links will have to be manually broken.

I have manually linked them to placeholder pdfs, then deleted the placeholder pdfs and saved the document when they are broken - however when i reopen the .indd the links are have populated from a previous job on a different server ..

All of the other templates work fine using this method - I am just wondering if this is solvable within Indesign or a server issue.

Eugene Tyson · Answer

Embed the files to the InDesign file - you'll hear people saying don't do this etc. - but I've been doing it for years and it's fine for me.

Anyway - embed the Links.

Then when you copy over the files - and the links - you can then Relink to a Folder from the Links Panel submenu - this will give you an option to point to a single folder on your computer to relink all the files too.

Once all the files are relinked - you can reembed them.

I'm not sure exactly of what the project involves - do the PDFs get updates or any other links.

But to stop the files linking to the wrong folders - and they are not going to change

There are other things you can do - add versions to the PDF filenames - or dates - so the filenames are not identical.

For example - you can get scripts like this
https://www.marspremedia.com/software/indesign/links-grep-rename

And when the project is finished and you're happy with it - you can GREP rename the files to add a suffix or prefix to the filenames

(File)(.pdf)

change to

02_$1_01_Mar_issue_3_v1$2

It will rename all the files in the links panel so you can have unique names for the filenames

and this would serve to ensure you don't relink to incorrect files due to them having specific names.

Again - I don't truly know your full workflow.

Hopefully gave some ideas.

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