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Participant
October 27, 2023
Question

Convert to linked Smart Object

  • October 27, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 278 views

I'm not sure at which Mac system update this happened, but at some point when I convert a layer to a linked smart object the finder defaults to "untitled" as the file name, not the layer name, which it used to be. For the sake of automation I need it to retain the layer name.  My PC using team members do not have this issue...it still defaults to the layer name as file name when converting to linked.

Does anyone have a Mac solution? ....a script perhaps? A system preference setting?

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1 reply

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2023

@See Nelsen 

 

I wrote a script to convert an embedded SO to a linked SO and I develop on a Mac for cross-platform use so it should work for you.

 

I'll need to dig up the link.. 

 

Edit: here you go -

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/converting-to-linked-smart-object/td-p/13357539


Let me know in this topic if you need any changes made to the scripts and I'll post updated code here.

 

Participant
October 30, 2023

Stephen_A_Marsh

That was close! The script did work but it nested the graphic because they are already SO placed .ai files.  When I ran your script, the linked file became a nested .psb. Is it possible to not nest and create link as native ai?

Also there will be a specific location on our server these links will be saved to. Because I have team members on both Mac and PCs, would two different scripts need to be created? One with Mac path and another with PC path? I don't know if this is relevant but this script will be ran within a nested SO. We need to nest the initial ai so we have greater distorting capacity.

Thank you!

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 30, 2023

This was never intended to be used for vector smart objects. The script would need more complex code using BridgeTalk to open the .AI file into Illustrator and resave from Illustrator, as Photoshop can't save native AI files.