Cant release compound path: InDesign

[jarods80903597]

I'm working on a monthly newsletter and have previously released the compound path in order to paste an image into a vector as described here​. However I went to do the same thing today, on the same document, with the same file, and "release compound path" was greyed out. I spent an hour trying to get it to work again with no avail.

Thanks in advance

[vinny38]

Hi Jarod

Open your Layers Panel, select your cog and check you Layers panel info.

Is it a compound path, separate paths, a group, or something else?

Let us know

[jarods80903597]

I've attached a screenshot of my layers panel, the two called transGear.ai are the cogs. The two i got to show work appear as a polygon with a pasted graphic inside, and the other a text frame with a pasted graphic for some reason.

[rob day]

The two i got to show work appear as a polygon with a pasted graphic inside, and the other a text frame with a pasted graphic for some reason

Your layer is showing <TransGears.ai> and the .ai means you have placed and not pasted the object. To get a compound path you can edit in InDesign you will have to paste the paths.

Also the Clipboard preference will affect a paste. Make sure Prefer PDF When Pasting is unchecked.

[Mike Witherell]

Are you using the white direct selection tool to click on the path edge?

Did you build it on the master page, but must override it to the local page?

[rob day]

The english version of Vinny's post—if the selected object isn't listed as <compound path> Release Compound Path will be grayed out.

[jarods80903597]

Okay, makes sense, but why doesn't it show up as compound path in InDesign? The graphics was a compound path in illustrator before being pasted into InDesign. Is there a way to convert it back or what might I be doing wrong?

[rob day · Accepted solution]

You have to copy and paste the gear from Illustrator. The Clipboard preference will affect a paste, make sure Prefer PDF When Pasting is unchecked.

but why doesn't it show up as compound path in InDesign

When you place a file it is linked to the InDesign document and you can't edit the object in InDesign. You would have to edit the file in another application, but in this case it won't help because if you release the compound path you still won't be able to select the inner circle and add an image.

[jarods80903597]

Okay, that worked! Thank you very much! However, I'm still confused as to why placing the object from its illustrator file into InDesign didn't work the same the way.

[rob day]

Because Linked files are not editable. When you place a file you get a proxy preview of the original .ai file.

You want the link/proxy workflow because embedding large objects might add too much weight to a document making it difficult to open and edit. For example you can place a 1gigabyte image on a page, save the ID document and its file size will only be a few megabytes.

You could look at saving your gear as a snippet via Export from InDesign. If you place a snippet it will be editable. Search for InDesign Snippets for a tutorial.

[jarods80903597]

Okay, that makes a lot more sense! I had just assumed a file that was placed would be embedded. Thanks again!