relinking multiple instances of the same link in Illustrator

[courtneyw98665068]

Hi,

So I see the latest version of illustrator still doesnt treat multiple instances of the same link as Indesign does. That is if I want to relink 50 + instances of a single file I need to go through each and every link and manually replace them - Why dont you make it function the same as Indesign in that I can chose to relink all instances at once or chose to relink the individual files as I see fit?

Why do you release an entirely new version of the Apps without taking into account basic things like this that people have been requesting for years???

Please add this functionality, its a basic bit of script that greatly increases productivity - Honestly should anyone even really need to suggest this?

[Martín Caezza]

I can understand the issue of having super big file when you have just copies of the same instance.
But for the replacement issue, I dont understand why you don't just replace te original file instead of relink each instance inside Illustrator.

[DRock22]

I know in my workfow, we are using extremely large files, so when making proofs for customers we use low res versions of all the links to keep from bogging down the computer and to increase efficiencey of our workflow. We keep seperate files for high res and the low res so we don't accidently send low res files to printing. So we need to relink files. 

[Martín Caezza]

I simply use 2 folders, "links" (with the low resolution files) and "links_hi" (with the real stuff). When I need to make the press files, i simply rename "links" to "links_lo" and "links_hi" to "links".

I almost never use relink, even if the client ask me to replace an image,  I just replace the file.

[DRock22]

If that works for you, that's fantastic. Unfortunately it doesn't work for us. We do 1000s of jobs every month, every one getting a folder for design proofs and another seperate folder for production. We are constantly reusing images from previous jobs on new designs for 100s of customers. We have to have separate files for each high res and low res images. Have two files with identical names but different resolutions is dangerous when you're constantly reusing images and when you're printing things 5ft-10ft tall.  

[Haryoso5CC2]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!
This works.. surprisingly!

[marcg68495176]

Surprisingly (?) this is still an issue in 2024. Here is a ChatGPT script that works wonders. It will list all links in the file grouped by file name, ask you to choose one, ask you to choose a new file, and automatically replace all links with the same name.

/**
 * This script replaces all linked files with the same name at one time in Adobe Illustrator.
 * It allows the user to select the link to replace from a list of current links using a drop-down menu
 * and then choose the new file from a dialog.
 */

function replaceAllLinksWithSameName() {
    var doc = app.activeDocument;
    var placedItems = doc.placedItems;
    var linkNames = [];

    // Collect all unique link names
    for (var i = 0; i < placedItems.length; i++) {
        var placedItem = placedItems[i];
        if (placedItem.file) {
            var fileName = placedItem.file.name;

            // Check if the fileName is already in linkNames
            var isUnique = true;
            for (var j = 0; j < linkNames.length; j++) {
                if (linkNames[j] === fileName) {
                    isUnique = false;
                    break;
                }
            }

            if (isUnique) {
                linkNames.push(fileName);
            }
        }
    }

    if (linkNames.length === 0) {
        alert("No linked files found in the document.");
        return;
    }

    // Create a dialog for link selection
    var dialog = new Window("dialog", "Select Link to Replace");
    dialog.orientation = "column";

    var dropdown = dialog.add("dropdownlist", undefined, linkNames);
    dropdown.selection = 0;

    var okButton = dialog.add("button", undefined, "OK");
    okButton.onClick = function() {
        dialog.close(1);
    };

    if (dialog.show() != 1) {
        return;
    }

    var oldFileName = dropdown.selection.text;
    var newFile = File.openDialog("Select the new file to replace " + oldFileName);

    if (newFile) {
        var count = 0;

        for (var k = 0; k < placedItems.length; k++) {
            var placedItem = placedItems[k];
            if (placedItem.file && placedItem.file.name === oldFileName) {
                placedItem.file = newFile;
                count++;
            }
        }

        alert(count + " links have been replaced.");
    } else {
        alert("Operation cancelled or no file selected.");
    }
}

replaceAllLinksWithSameName();

[chris2000]

The easiest way is to open the AI file in Notepad and replace all instances of the currently linked filename with the new one, save it and reopen it in Illustrator.

[Monika Gause]

---

@chris2000  schrieb:

The easiest way is to open the AI file in Notepad and replace all instances of the currently linked filename with the new one, save it and reopen it in Illustrator.

---

If you ever did this yourself, then some details would be interesting.

[chris2000]

This is very annoying. They've removed the replace all option. The only solution now is to move the original and create a new one in a new directory but with the same filename as the previous. Not good.

[Ton Frederiks]

The Apply to All checkbox is back in Beta 28.8.0.43:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/484...

[RV999]

Best practices wen you start a new .ai file with links: Create first a v1 mother-folder, in it  a WORK folder and in the WORK folder make a Links folder, don’t re-name it anything else. In the WORK folder you create a v1.ai file and link the images into the Links folder IN THAT WORK folder. If you want to link any image into that .ai file ALWAYS first copy the image into the Links folder and THEN place it into the .ai. This is important for your future sanity, trust me.

Now you want to make changes but keep the v1 version intact in case you need to come back to it: Make a v2 mother-folder, in it create a WORK folder. Then copy the v1.ai file in the WORK folder, rename it v2.ai but you will notice that the links are still connected to the v1 folder!!

How to make sure the links in the v2 search all at once in the v1 Links folder? You can re-link each manually but that is crazy time-consuming. If you try to just copy the Links folder from v1 to v2 Illu doesn’t automatically look there, it still looks in the old v1 folder! So how do you replace all the links at once? (InDesign has an option to do this much easier but the developers of Illustrator are busy with stupid features and not with core functionality of the program, so this is the only work-around we have..)

So: Open the v2.ai

Open the v1 WORK folder and  MOVE (not copy!) the whole (v1) Links folder to the v2 WORK folder

In the v2.ai that you have open in the background Illu will say it lost its links.

Click Yes>Replace and now you have an option to look in a new folder (check the little checkbox at the bottom ”search for missing links in this folder”), point it to the new location of the links in the v2 folder (manually navigate to the right folder or copy-paste the address of the correct folder in the top bar)

Important: COPY BACK the Links folder to the v1 WORK folder so the v1.ai still has its links intact!