Broken Links after Packaging (was "indesign 2018")

[morbith138]

Hi everyone,

i have an issue with absolute paths to links from a indd file. Im not sure if this existed in previous version, or maybe i havent noticed, but its very annoying.

So,

this is my problem.

When i package the book on "Location1" (on one of my drives), the links in those files still have an absolute path.

like

link   --->   drive: bla01/2081/BookFolder/Links/someFile.jpg

indd ---->  drive: bla01/2081/BookFolder/somefile.indd

Please keep in mind  that "Links" folder is in same root folder as .indd file. That folder is "BookFolder".

That being said i didnt see at the time that i named folder 2081 instead of 2018. So as soon as i change the book's parent folder to 2018, the links get broken. So because it is a PACKAGED book, shouldnt this "BookFolder" be independent of any parent folders. I mean the path to links from indd file should be relative, right? Like websites.  Because that "BookFolder" i should be able to move around, send it via email to other colleagues and stuff, and no meter where they or i place it, we should be able to just start working without geting brokent links. Isnt that the final idea?

Because right now, as soon is i change the parent folder to 2018, or i move the whole package to drive: bla01/someOtherLocation/BookFolder/, indesign files report broken links. And that is pretty dumb in my opinion.

Does anyone have similar issues? Or is it a featur?. Altho, i can not pathom what feature would that be. This should work just like html and css does, IMHO.

It doesnt metter what indd version it is. On all of them i get the same experience. Runing on High Sierra.

Exept when i export idml file. Then it works fine, when its opened on some other computer.

Thank you all, in advance

Morb

[BobLevine]

Did you choose to update the links in the packaged folder?

[hammer0909]

InDesign doesn't have relative links like web sites do. Not exactly anyway. When you change the name of the folder from 2081 to 2018, InDesign is looking for a folder called 2081 regardless of what you named it to. Now if the InDesign document is in that 2018 folder, all your links will be fine. That however is not good file management. An easy way to fix this is to select all of the missing links in the links panel and choose "Relink to Folder". Choose the new 2018 folder and all of your links should be good. They should also be fine now when you send this package to other users because InDesign knows where to look.

[morbith138]

Chad, thanx for answering.

Then What is the point of packaging the book if all the links will remain to have the absolute path. Absolute path means, that if i send you a packaged book folder zipped, when you unzip it, open any indd file, path to the link has to be absolutely the same as on my computer. Which is wrong.

Because you should able to unzip it on your , let say, desktop and start working. That is fundamental idea of packaging book for print.

That means indesign file will only look for "LINKS" folder and as long as that "LINKS" folder is located in the same folder as .indd file, all shoould be good. Right? That is called realtive path linking.

Yo wrote:

"Now if the InDesign document is in that 2018 folder, all your links will be fine."

So "BookFolder" with 170 separated .indd files are in that "2081"folder.  And no, as soon as i change it to 2018 links get broken.

And i also need to nest this book folder into one more folder. But as soon as i do, all links get broken as well. And they shouldnt.

And i have 175 separated personalized documents and i i should update each and everyone of them, or run some script to do it for me every time i wanna move the BookFolder localy? And at the same time, you dont have to do it if i send it to you zipped. That makes no sence to me at all.

[jane-e]

morbith138  wrote

Then What is the point of packaging the book if all the links will remain to have the absolute path.

...

And i have 175 separated personalized documents and i i should update each and everyone of them, or run some script to do it for me every time i wanna move the BookFolder localy? And at the same time, you dont have to do it if i send it to you zipped. That makes no sence to me at all.

Hi Morb,

As users, we can only explain how InDesign works. Adobe maintains a bug report/feature request list that is read by the engineers and ideas are voted on by users.

Please post your request here: Adobe InDesign Feedback

Best,

Jane

[morbith138]

Hi Jane,

i know, i am sorry if i seemed dissrespectful. It wasnt my intention.

I know also how indesign works, i have been using it for 10 years now. But i never experienced that untill i upgraded to High Sierra and IN2018. And i dont know, where to start my search in figuring it out.

So basicly im was trying to explain what is happening to me and to see if im wrong crazy or someone has the same problem.

Thnx

[jane-e]

Hi Mord, no—I didn't mean that! Just that the engineers read the User Voice for feature requests, so it's a good place to put in requests for changes to InDesign.

Also, since you mentioned that it works when you export to idml, you might want to read this post from Bill Silbert:

IDMLs A Cautionary Tale

Cheers,

Jane

[morbith138]

Hi Jane,

i do not want to submit it as a bug because i do not know if it is a bug or a feature, I just wanted to see if im doing something wrong.

thnx

[hammer0909 · Accepted solution]

You can do what your asking in that you can package it and send it to other users and they can work on the file without the links being broken. I guess you could say they're absolute paths relative to where the InDesign document lives. The InDesign book panel and the links panel for that matter, is looking for a specific file in a specific path for those files. However, if the folder that contains those files exists in the same folder as the InDesign file, then it will find those links even though the path has technically changed. As long as those subfolders and the file names are the same, it should work. Feel free to add that additional subfolder and relink the files. From then on it should work. But you can't continue to change the file directory path because the files links will continue to break. Make sense?

[morbith138]

Chad, i dont think u fully understand me, and that is my fault i guess.

did u menage to see the image that i posted up there. Forget the 2081 issue. because whatever change i make in the path to that book folder links get broken.

ok so specific problem.

now the path is ........................ /CB/CB BOOK Folder  (and  that book folder was created when i did the package. )

now the path that i want is  ....../CB/May/CB BOOK Folder      

So i want to add a parent folder (not a child folder), to this BOOK folder. Relations between LINKS folder in Indesign files remain untouched.

Quote: "However, if the folder that contains those files exists in the same folder as the InDesign file"---

that folder is "CB BOOK Folder", and yes it contains in its root, those files in LINKS folder as well as it contains indesign files, nothing has changes there)

"it should work" -- Nope.- as soon as add parent folder to the "CB BOOK Folder" links get broken. But when i send that CB BOOK Folder to someone else, where path is obviously changed as well, the file should work. That really makes no sense to me.

I just want to add, huge thnx to everybody trying to help me understand this.

I appreciate it.

m.

[morbith138]

here is quick video of what is my problem.

But when i send you zipped BOOK folder, it should work, right? So basicly why path on my computer can not be changed, and on yours it can. This is basicly what is bugging me.

thank you all.

[BobLevine]

I'm using email so I didn't see the video until after I sent my previous response. Doesn't really clarify what you did, though.

[hammer0909]

It's not a bug. You're essentially hiding all of the necessary files from InDesign. It can't find them. That being said, after doing what you did in the video, simply relink the files to the new location that you created and save. NOW if you zip it and send it to someone else, they should be fine. I guess the real question is, why is it so important that you change the folder structure like you are doing. Honestly it's not that important. But you're basically hiding those files so InDesign can't see them so you need to just tell InDesign the new location that you put them. It's pretty simple. Not a but at all. This is expected behavior.

[BobLevine]

We had another discussion about renaming folders and files and I will repeat what I said then. Do not rename folders. Do not rename files.

You named it wrong? Delete the package and repackage it. End of story.

That would have taken you way less time than the amount of time that’s been spent here.

Now, if I’m misunderstanding (which is entirely possible) you’re going to need to do a much better job of describing the issue including some screenshot so we can get some visuals.