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A
Anonymous
February 12, 2020
Question

is there's a way to switch artboards of a linked illustrator file w/o re-linking the same file?

  • February 12, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1913 views

So let's say I drew a logo in illustrator and in that illustrator file I have four artboards with color variants for each logo. I make a label or something with that logo file placed and linked on the label file - is there any way I can cycle the placed-linked file artboards? The way I've been doing it for years is just finding the linked file in the links panel and re-linking it with the same file and making sure options are turned on to choose artboards. This works fine but it's a pain jumping directories all the time to find the same linked file when I'm pulling assets from all over the place. There's got to be an easier way to do this!

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    2 replies

    Kurt Gold
    Community Expert
    Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 13, 2020

    Thanks for the clarification. What you are describing is indeed the way one has to go because the (link) placed file does not "know" that it actually comes from a multipage file. There is no information about the content that has not been placed and the number of artboards in the original file. So you cannot cycle through anything.

     

    If you are going to do that on a regular basis, I'd recommend to take a look at linked file variables and data sets (see Variables palette). This may probably be what you are looking for, but you would have to change your current workflow, of course.

    Kurt Gold
    Community Expert
    Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 12, 2020

    Probably I'm a bit slow-witted, but as per your description I have no idea about what you are looking for.

     

    Can you elaborate (perhaps with some screenshots that may explain your issue)?

    A
    Anonymous
    February 12, 2020

    I'm looking for a way to switch artboards on a linked file.

    So let's say I made a logo file with multiple artboards:

    my example shows 4 artboards of the same size in one file, on the right panel you can see 4 artboards.

     

    Now I create another file and place the logo file in the document:

    you can see it's a linked file showing artboard #1

     

    but now I don't like the black version, I want to cycle through artboards from the linked file (the first file). Currently the only way I know how to do this is to click on the "LINK" panel and re-link the file and make sure you have the "Show Import Options" checked:

     

    I will then get this panel letting me choose which artboard I'd like to use:

     

    this is way too many steps to simply jump to the next artboard in the file.

     

    I'm looking for a way to do this without all of the hassle. Whether it be actions or scripts, I just want to be able to basically "one-touch" this process and cycle through every single artboard, would be nice to be able to go to the previous artboard or at least cycle back to the first artboard.

     

    I hope that clears up what I'm asking for. 

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