Trouble packaging InDesign file "....Cannot copy necessary linked file(s)"

[karlam15046400]

I'm trying to package an InDesign document and I keep getting the message "InDesign could not package the document. Cannont copy necessary linked file(s)". I've been reading comments in the community about this issue even from back in 2014 where most of them say that the issue might be the naming of the linked files using characters such as / - _  etc. However, I've always used the same files and never had a problem with it until I upgraded my iOS to Ventura 13.0.1. This is a huge deal because I have thousands of files that include dashes because of the model numbers in our company and it's pretty much insane to think about changing the name of all those files and relink everything I have in the system. So far my CC is up to date. 

I appreciate any help on this. Thank you!

[m1b]

Hi @karlam15046400, I'm running Indesign 18.0 (2023) and MacOS Ventura 13.0.1 and I can't reproduce your error. I used a filename with forward slash, emdash and endash and underscore and everything packaged okay.

HOWEVER, I strongly advise you to not use forward slash in your filenames anywhere. The reason is that MacOS is built on unix, which uses forward slash as the file system delimiter character. So why does MacOS allow forward slashes in filenames at all? It actually doesn't. If you look at your file from a terminal, you'll see that "myFile/WithSlash.indd" is actually named "myFile:WithSlash.indd" with a colon in place of the slash. MacOS does a switch between slash and colon so that unix sees a colon, and the Mac GUI shows the colon as a forward slash. Traditional, pre-unix, versions of MacOS used colons as the file system delimiter and it still considers colon an illegal character. In the Finder, try naming a file "myFile:WithColon.indd" and you will get an error.

My guess is that some part of your process is getting confused about the switching—maybe a file server running another OS? But the simple answer, unfortunately, is to never use forward slash or colon in your filenames.

- Mark

[karlam15046400]

Hi Mark,

I appreciate the help. I actually never use colon or forward slash, I just use either dashes or underscore. I've been working on these files for about 8 years and I've been having that issue for about a week. The weird thing is that I did a test resaving a file and all the links on my desktop without dashes and it did let me package it. However, I don't know if the issue is in the shared server or the application. Thanks again!

[m1b · Accepted solution]

Okay, but can you package a file to your desktop folder without changing the filename?

If that works, I wonder if the problem is unrelated to the filename at all... space running out on server volume? Or perhaps one of the characters is illegal on the filesystem that the file server is running?

[karlam15046400 · Accepted solution]

Good point. I was able to package on my Desktop without changing the file names. So maybe this is something I need to address to our IT. Thanks a lot for your help, it's been very helpful.

[m1b]

You're welcome. Hope it's an easy fix!

[Stinger309]

I have the same problem.

No errors in Preflight

I tried everything from changing filenames to not including the PDF in de package window, nothing worked.

I finally solved it by embedding all the links (select all links - right click - embed link).

Packaging (yes it worked fine this time)

Opening the newly created (much larger) indesign file. 

Selecting all the links again and unembed them.. on the prompt screen that popped up (linking to the original files) I chose NO. It then asked me to select a new folder to put the files into. I chose the Package folder and named the new folder 'Links'.

Deleted the oversized InDesign file and replaced it with the original in the packaged folder. 

Opend the original file and relinked everything with the newly created 'Links' folder.

A big workaround for something I still don't know the cause of.

[rachaelbearNZ]

Hey I've just solved this by selecting all my links in the links panel, clicking on the link panel menu and clicking embed link. Then I saved the document and I am now able to package it!

[BobLevine]

You didn't solve anything. Embedding is not at all advisable and can easily lead to file corruption if you have a lot of large files embedded.

[rachaelbearNZ]

I know, sorry. I immediately reported my own post upon realising this and
asked Adobe to remove it as it is incorrect. Apologies, but hey, we always
appreciate a harsh critic haha.