Illustrator Links Show Hidden Layers in InDesign

[ellenk20330004]

I am having a problem where artwork created in Illustrator and saved as a .ai file are showing hidden, locked layers when placed into InDesign.  The strange thing is that Indesign is recognizing some of the links with the hidden layer and keeping that layer hidden while not so with others. All of the links have been created from the same basic Illustrator file that I have done a "save as" over to create a new file. I just updated to the most recent versions this morning (Illustrator 23.1.1, Indesign 14.0.3). I have a workaround that I was able to come up with for this particular project I am working on, but I would like to know if there is a solution (an adjustment to preferences perhaps) I can use for the future.

I feel like I cannot possibly be the first person to have this problem, so if there is another post somewhere with the solution to this, please let me know—I just couldn't find anything. 

[Willi Adelberger · Accepted solution]

Did you turn on the impor options when placing in InDesign and did you set up the layer section?

[ellenk20330004]

That did the trick—I've never touched this panel, so I'm not sure how it got set to Keep Layer Visibility Overrides, but now I know. Thank you!

[Charlie329572228uvx]

Hi,

I am having the same issue. I am not sure why all of a sudden the layers that were hidden before are appearing. 

Here is the dialogue doing a save-as of the illustrator file

Here are the import settings

I have all of these sublayers turned off

But they are still appearing in Indesign.

[Charlie329572228uvx]

I am trying with a brand new file and something is still not working

Now all of these sublayers are NOT appearing!

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Charlie329572228uvx,

Thanks for sharing the screenshots and details. I understand how confusing it can be. When placing an Illustrator file, please make sure the Show Import Options box is checked in the Place dialog. In the import options window, go to the Layers section, set the desired visibility there, and ensure Keep Layer Visibility Overrides is unchecked. This helps InDesign follow the visibility settings from Illustrator correctly.

If you've already tried that and the issue still occurs inconsistently across files, try saving a new copy of the Illustrator file with a different name and reimporting it into InDesign to refresh the layer visibility.

Also, since this thread is quite old, please create a new one with your current Illustrator and InDesign versions and OS details, so we can take a closer look.

Abhishek

[Charlie329572228uvx · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the suggestions. In my case, I had to purge the file from the ID document, move it to a new directory, and remove extraneous artboards before I was able to get indesign to preserve the layer visibility in illustrator. It only happened for this one illustrator file out of 12 linked illustrator files in the document.