All text missing in InCopy -- after it is linked in InDesign

Report · Nov 30, 2022

Hi,

After years of using InDesign and InCopy seamlessly, our organization has suddenly encountered a very frustrating problem.

In my case, it emerged when I upgraded to a new MacBook Air (running Ventura OS 13.0.1) and started running InCopy 2023 v. 18.0.

When opening an indd file using InCopy, text is generally viewable -- until it's linked in InDesign for sharing with Incopy. Then it disappears. When an entire print publication was linked, all of the text disappeared. FYI, the indd file and links are stored in a shared Dropbox folder, a system that's worked perfectly in the past.

Strangely, another user in our office, who's running InCopy 2021 v18 CAN on her MacBook (Big Sur 11.7) see and presumably edit the linked text.

Based on feedback received in an InCopy forum, I've tried turning off GPU performance, trashing InCopy preferences and updating my OS to the very latest avaialble, but nothing has worked yet. Hoping the InDesign forum has ideas or that some form of Adobe support for an active Creative Cloud corporate subscriber is available.

Report · Nov 30, 2022

This might be a bug in the new InDesign 2023, which has a lot of problems, especially on Macs with newer operating systems.

Record this as a bug in www.InDesign.UserVoice.com.

And we rolled our stuido back to InDesign 2022. Much happier! We'll upgrade to 2023 in January or February once more bugs are fixed.

Report · Dec 01, 2022

Thanks. I think I solved the problem with a Dropbox settings change (see below) but I now have 2022 versions of InCopy and InDesign just in case. Thanks!

Report · Nov 30, 2022

Just to be clear, when you said:

When opening an indd file using InCopy, text is generally viewable -- until it's linked in InDesign for sharing with Incopy. Then it disappears.

Wouldn't you want to do those steps in the reverse order? First, export to share with InCopy from InDesign. Then try to open the .indd with InCopy.

Too, you might want to compare the two computer's DropBox settings to see if that makes any difference.

Mike Witherell

Report · Dec 01, 2022

Yeah, I'm not sure what I implied, but what you describe is how we're doing it.

And finally found SUCCESS. It did turn out to be a Dropbox settings issue that probably was semi-obvious. Dropbox now allows you to sync files so they're either "available offline" or "online only." It was set to "online only" which makes acrtive files available on your hard drive. That makes the indd file active when it's opened, but not all of the assignments. Even after changing the setting, Dropbox didn't automatically apply the change to existing files. I noticed cloud icons next to the assignments files, so I opened them all manually (hundreds of them at once) which changed the cloud icons to check marks indicating they're now all stores locally on my hard drive. And InCopy seems to be working again! Thanks.

Report · Dec 01, 2022

Smart sync has been known to be a problem for quite some time. Normally, it forces InDesign to time out or show a missing link but I've never seen it just not show the text.

In any event, glad you got it sorted.

BTW, no need to do this on a folder by folder basis. You can change it in your Dropbox preferences.