Lost all the keywords - bridge cs3

Question

Hello! It seems bridge suddenly cancelled all the keywords I had saved - now when I open it and try to insert keywords in the photos, instead of giving me the whole list of keywords I had created from which I picked out keywords to apply to each photo, the program only gives me a couple of stupid default keywords. If they were really all gone, it would be a year's work gone. Can anyone help?
Thank you so much.
Annalisa

Answer 1

If they were really all gone, it would be a year's work gone. Can anyone help?
The keywords list is in the user library (user library/application support/Adobe/BridgeCS3 : Adobe Bridge Keywords.xml
If you have problems with Bridge first thing to try is restart Bridge holding down option key and choose reset preferences.
And you should have made a back up of your keyword list on a regularly base using the export menu under the fly out menu top right of the keyword panel. There is always a risk of a crash or other stuff.
Your keywords are not lost, they still are assigned to the files but your keyword tree might. If you select a file with keywords that are assigned but not on the list they will appear in italic on your keyword list. Click on them with right mouse click and choose make persistent to get it back in the list. Painstakingly because you have to do that one by one.
If you have a back up from the library somewhere (time machine?) and your list is still gone after reseting preferences copy the above mentioned keywords file to your current user library to retain the old one.
If you have an exported file of them you can easily import the list again in the same menu as export.
And Tai Lao is correct with CS3, it is really the worst version ever of Bridge.