Gather Links Without Packaging
Recently, a designer on an InDesign listserv said she missed PageMaker’s “Save As/with Links for Printing” feature, which she had found useful to get all of her original image files into a “clean, new folder” along with her saved-as PageMaker file.
Though InDesign lacks that specific feature, you can easily achieve the same end result with one of my favorite commands: Copy Links To. It’s fast, easy, and helps keep things organized as you work. I use it all the time.
- Choose Save As to create a new version of your InDesign layout, and in the Save As dialog box, create that “clean new folder” to save it into. This is optional, of course — Copy Links To doesn’t require it — but we’re replicating the Pagemaker feature here.
- Your Saved As file is the current, active document. Open its Links palette and select all the entries: Click to select the top link, scroll to the bottom of the palette and shift-click the last entry.
- Choose the Copy Links To command in the Links palette menu. InDesign will copy the selected links; the original images, PDFs, etc. that you placed, and duplicate them to the folder you specify in the next step.
- An Open/Save dialog box opens, asking you to select a folder where you’d like the links copied to. To do that Pagemaker thing, navigate to the location of your current InDesign document, add a new subfolder (perhaps called “Links”), select it and click the Choose button.
When the dialog box closes it doesn’t look like anything has changed. The entries in the Links palette look exactly the same as before. But try double-clicking an entry to view its Link Info, specfically, the path to the original file.
As you can see, InDesign has automatically updated the links in the current document to their new location, just like the Update Links checkbox does in the File > Package command. So it acts like a “mini-Package” without the tedious routine of a forced preflight and instruction form.
But it’s not a complete replacement for Packaging, as you don’t have an option to copy the fonts, for one thing.
On the other hand, if you’re prone to forgetting that the Package command puts a copy of the current InDesign document into the Package folder, leaving the current layout open (into which you might be entering last-minute changes); you should consider using Copy Links To for an “almost ready for the printer” intermediate step.
Hi there… isn’t that what “package” does in the file menu?… copy a new copy of the file plus all links AND fonts in to a new folder?
Sorry I also meant to say – what have I missed? regards Piers
Hi Piers. Yes, the Package command puts copies of the images into a Links folder.
What I’m writing about is a way to gather all the images in one spot without having to Package. Sometimes you need to do that, in the middle of production for example (way before you’re ready to send the file off), and this way is faster than using the Package command.
Here’s how I use this feature: if I’m working on a series of related documents (say, issues of a newsletter), rather than work from a template each time (does anybody have the discipline to do that?), I open the previous issue, save it to a new folder, delete all the images that were specific to the previous issue, and then I use Copy Links To… to create a Links folder for the new issue that as a result starts out with all the repeating images needed for this issue.
One significant difference between Package and Copy Links To is that the former ignores linked images on the pasteboard while Copy Links To does not. Copy Links To gives you all the links in your document while Package gives you only those that are needed to print the document.
Dave
The really nice-to-have functionality that I’d welcome in Package is Update Package. Maybe it’s only my clients who request last-minute changes after a job is already packaged, but there have been a few times where this would have been very useful. Creating a fresh package is a bit of a pain, and updating the already-packaged file leaves an unsychronized original in the project folder.
Anne-Marie: You touched on an important gotcha — Package leaves the original in place. In CS2 it was easy to forget that the Open Recent list now contains two identical entries that refer to different .indd files (the one in the package and the original). CS3 now inserts the full path, which helps a lot, but an “Update Existing Package” option in the Package dialog would still be very useful.
( Is “Copy Links to…” A CS2 only command? )
Working between a central server and a desktop at my job, it’s often necessary to move around all the image files in a document, or put updated ones back onto the server.
A way to accomplish something similar to the above is the old “embed, unembed” trick: select all your links in the links palette; in the fly-out, select “Embed Links”— you’ll get a dialog asking “Are you sure you want to do this etc.”; click okay.
After the progress bar is done, reselect all your links and choose “Unembed…” from the fly-out; ID will prompt you, asking if you want to link back to the old files, or copy your links to a new location.
To copy to a new folder, select the somewhat cryptic “no” and you will be prompted for a “Save As…” location.
We work with low-res .smp files within Indesign file link to the Hi-res image for the final PDF output for print.
Sometime we are ask to collect the files to sended to a 3rd party. Is there a way Packaging in Indesign can collect the hI-RES image and not the low-res which was place in the Indesgin document.
Trev, can InDesign import smp files? I’ve never heard of these (just googled them… Xionics?). The quick answer is no, you can’t swap out like that automatically. You might want to take a look at Teacup’s Image Swapper plug-in.
Hi – Has anyone noticed that when you package in the latest in-design, (or use the copy links to option) only the links on master pages move into the new links folder, … can anyone help me? am i missing something.. it seems to be fine on documents with no master page links, but on ones that have just leaves all other links..
Thanks for the information. This was very helpful to me as I am in the process of handing over a draft report over to another designer, and I wanted to make sure they have all the “stuff” they need.