Check for errors on file close?

[joep10800191]

Hi friends -

I've been looking around the net to see if this was possible but have come up empty so far.

With the amount of iD files I work with across teams, it would be really beneficial if there was a way to warn our users if there are missing links or font errors when they are closing a file. That way we can adjust these errors prior to saving and exiting. I know this check happens on the front end when opening a file but sometimes we have links adjusted while we are working in the file.

I know preflighting could help and notify in the bottom status bar, but it can be easy to miss. If we had a way for a module to popup on close if there was an error, it could prevent some back and forth for us.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Preflight is a great choice. A custom Preflight would be even better. Here's a video about Preflight that could help.

http://www.jeffwitchel.net/2012/08/finding-potential-printing-problems-automatically/

If the biggest thing you're concerned about is missing links and fonts, make sure your entire team is ALWAYS working from Packaged files (File > Package). That way no one should ever be missing links or fonts when they open a layout on a different computer.

[Pijnacker01]

As Jeff mention, there is preflight in InDesign, as you know. This is great for many cases. That said, many also opt for the stand-alone option of FlightCheck. Like this book/advertising customer:

FlightCheck user review from Terri Wright, preflight for prepress for book printing - YouTube

The point is with FlightCheck, is that it often goes deeper, especially with embedded elements within placed EPS, AI or PDF files.Watch: InDesign vs FlightCheck - Round 1 - Placed PDF Problems - YouTube

And it checks many file formats other than just InDesign.

Friendly Regards,
David Dilling
Markzware(Makers of FlightCheck)

[rob day]

If all you are trying to do is check for link status and not a full preflight, it could be done via a startup script that listens for a quit. So this ApplsScript (OSX only), would check the link status and display a dialog if the status of all the links isn't normal. ID would still quit after the dialog is displayed, and I’m not sure if there is a way to stop the quit after the dialog is dismissed. It also only checks the front document, but it would be possible to check all open docs.

If you are using OSX paste this into Apple Script Editor and save it into your /Applications/Adobe InDesign CC 20xx/Scripts/startup scripts folder

tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
    make event listener with properties {event type:"beforeQuit", handler:checkLinks}
end tell
on checkLinks()
    tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
        try
            set lnks to every link of active document whose status is not normal
            if (count of lnks) is greater than 0 then
                display dialog "The Active Document Has " & (count of lnks) & " Modified or Missing Links"
            end if
        end try
    end tell
end checkLinks

[rob day]

There's also a before close event, so you could check when the doc is closed rather than on a quit:

tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
    make event listener with properties {event type:"beforeClose", handler:checkLinks}
end tell
on checkLinks()
    tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
        try
            set lnks to every link of active document whose status is not normal
            if (count of lnks) is greater than 0 then
                display dialog "The Active Document Has " & (count of lnks) & " Modified or Missing Links"
            end if
        end try
    end tell
end checkLinks

[joep10800191]

Thanks Rob! This is ideally what I was looking for rather than doing full preflight. I do work out of Windows so I am guessing I'll need to find a similar JS version to make this work correct?

[rob day · Accepted solution]

I’m not that fluent in JS, but I think this should work. If you need something more complex ask in the scripting forum.

#targetengine "closeConfirmation"
app.addEventListener("beforeClose", confirmClose);
function confirmClose(e) {
    if(e.parent.constructor.name !== "LayoutWindow") return;
    var d = app.documents[0];
    var lnks = d.allGraphics;
    for(i = 0; i < lnks.length; i++){
        if(lnks.itemLink.status != LinkStatus.NORMAL){
            if (confirm ("The document you are about to close has modified links. Click Yes if you would like to close this document.") === false) {
                e.stopPropagation();
                e.preventDefault();
            }
            return
        }
  }
}

[joep10800191]

This is perfect, thank you Rob!