Sharing InDesign Files Without Links

[Mateomono]

Hi!

Is there a way to send my InDesign file to someone to work on, and when they send it back, I can continue working on it without all of my images being unlinked?

Thank you!

[Bill Silbert]

Probably the safest way is to embed the links. You can select all of the links at once in the links panel by shift-clicking on all of their names and then choosing "Embed Link" under the links panel pull-down menu. If you need to later edit the links then you can reverse the process using "Unembed Link" that will appear in the links panel pull-down menu if a link has been previously embedded. When you do that you will get a message asking if you want to create a new folder for the linked image(s) or to link to the original source.

[BobLevine]

This one falls under the "it depends" category. If the OP has a bunch of icons embedded, that's fine. If we're talking about a lot of Photoshop and Illustrator files that add up to gigabytes, that is big time recipe for disaster.

[Peter Spier]

Why not simply tell your asssociate to ignore the missing/modified links warnings and refrain from updating them?

[Mateomono]

Hi @Peter Spier Thank you for you response. 

Because when he sends me the file back with the updates, I need to update all of the links. If there were only a couple, it wouldn’t be a problem, but we have a lot of links.

[Peter Kahrel]

There are various scripts around that update all links in  a document. A Google search with

indesign script update all links

shows a lot of them.

[Peter Spier]

Aside from @Peter Kahrel's advice, my point is that if the links are NOT updated on his end, then you shouldn't need to update them on your end when the file is returned.

Another method would be to Package the file so all links are included in a Links Folder inthe pacage folder, and you work with that file.

[Peter Spier]

Or perhaps you should look into an InCopy workflow.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Hi Peter Spier Thank you for you response. 

Because when he sends me the file back with the updates, I need to update all of the links. If there were only a couple, it wouldn’t be a problem, but we have a lot of links.

By Mateomono

If he ignores warning - as suggested by @Peter Spier - and won't relink at his end - file you'll get back will still have links pointing to files on your machine.

Unless he is working on an earlier version - and gets your files converted one way or another. 

[BobLevine]

You should share a Dropbox or OneDrive folder and you can avoid all of this.