Nothing in links panel.

We have many customers that paste graphics and pictures from other applications into indesign (1.0, 2.0, & CS through CS4). They do not show as links in the links panel. Internally we call them "Pasted Pics". Upon output they are lo-res and look terrible in the finished product. We have written flight check scripts and also we run flight checks on the pdf's and through imposition and plates. Unless they are in a "group" we can detect that they exist, but we have no idea where they are in the document. Sometimes documents can be tens of pages with hundreds of images/graphics.
Here are my questions:
1.     Is there an official term for these objects @ Adobe (so that I can research the scripting syntax needed to search for and identify them)?
2.     Can they be identified even if they are contained in a "group" of objects?
3.     If we locate the actual image/graphic file that should be the link, is there a way to initiate a link to that file without having to manually place and      transform the image(s)?
Thanks,

1. I don't know if there's an official name. I doubt it. I call them "Really bad workflow from designers who don't know how to use the software properly."
2. I don't know if they can be identified specifically, but I suspect one of the scripters can tell you if there is a way to identify an object inside a group.
3. Since there is no link associated with pasted content you'd have to find the original art and place that normally, replacing the pasted object. You can do that by selcting the frame and choosing the replace existing content option, and again, one of the scripters could tell you if this can be automated, but I sincerely doubt it since there is no way to associate a particualr pasted image with a particular file you want to place, as far as I know.
Behavior seems to vary, by the way, from version to version and from Windows to Mac. In older versions on Windows you'd get the low-res Screen preview pasting from Photoshop (with an incorrect high res report in the info window). On mac it seems you might have gotten a full-res version. In CS4 you now also get full-res pasting from Photoshop into ID, but in all cases the pasted pixels will be RGB regardless of the image color mode in in Photoshop. What you would get pasting rasters from any other app is something I haven't tested (and wouldn't bother with because it's just plain bad workflow).
Pasting vectors can be useful -- simple ones remain editable in ID -- but I suspect that isn't what you are talking about.

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Image in Links panel displays as overset but may not exist

I am having a serious problem with an InDesign file and of course the blueline corrections were due half an hour ago. An image is appearing in my links panel as hidden in overset text. There is no overset text showing in my preflight profile. I can't go to the image since it gives me an error message indicating that it is hidden in overset text. This appeared for the first time in the file a couple of hours ago during which time, I have not placed any images.
Exporting to idml, deleting prefs and other types of options has not helped including going to the structured panel and trying to find the file or preceived file by ID in the Story editor. Is there any other way to remove this image from the Links panel? I believe this is what is also causing my system to slow to a crawl. This is a college schedule which has been linked to InCopy files. I have deleted the links to InCopy in case that was part of the problem but nothing seems to make a difference.
This is a Mac using InDesign CS5.5.

It looks like I have to recreate the file, another 6 hours of work after spending all day trying to resolve the issue. I wish it was as simple as just as reflowing it but there are too many column adjustments I had to make, which I try to stay away from, but could not avoid in this file. What is strange is that even after deleting all of the text in this file, all of the images are now listed as OV in the links panel instead of going away. This has happened in the past with InCopy stories but we have been able to delete the links from the panel. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to delete these image links from the Links panel despite the fact that they no longer exist. I will start with a new file and at least flow in the tagged text format but I am now on edge that this could happen again since I do not know the cause.

Links Panel - Links won't delete nor can I "Go to Link" to find the image

The current problem that I am encountering is under these circumstances:
PC - Win XP Pro SP3
InDesign CS4 (Design Premium Package)
102 Page Document
1115 Links, 33 which will not delete
My problem that I am having is that my links panel is showing links which I want to remove for organizational purposes but can't seem to find them in the document. Typically I would select the link within the links panel then choose "Go to Link" which would locate the link/file in the document. For some reason this locates nothing. I have also noticed that within the panel, there is nothing within the value field for "Page" such as a number or "<PB>" for Paste Board.
Has anyone encountered this? If not, your suggestions will be appreciated. Again, I simply want to remove these for organizational purposes and have less clutter.
-Jeremy

Peter, can you help with a similar case? I'm having the same problem but my Structure shows nothing in InDesign (CS4). I created a thread asking for help but havne't recelved any responses.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3426684?tstart=0
Based on my research it sounds like there are two different problems: 1) breaking links to files with a "page" of "< >", and 2) deleting links to files with a page of "DT". This tip seemed to solve my problem of breaking links to "DT" files, but I'm still unable to find a solution for ones linking to "< >".
I've tried Relinking files but the page ref stays the same no matter what image I link to. Copy Links To likewise makes a copy of the original image but leaves the page ref the same. In all instances the images can be opened using Edit Original, but I have no idea how to get the links themselves out of the document without being able to go to the object in layout!
Opening with InCopy (CS4) does yield some information in the structure, but nothing that seems to be helpful. There are no changes to be accepted or rejected here so there has to be another way to get that info out of the document.
Any ideas? I can PM you with a copy of the file if that helps!
Matthew

How do I delete a link in the link panel?

I have moved an item out of the links folder on a project I am working on in IDCC and when opening the project it tells me, rightly, that a link is missing. When I go to the links panel I see the alert that the linked item is missing, which I know, and I want to delete the link in the links panel but see no option to do this, also the delete key does nothing when the item is highlighted, and right-click (^ click) offer no delete choice either. How can I delete this item in the links panel?
TIA,
Ken

Amazing how the hot weather has affected me. Thank You Peter - so logical - I missed it while thinking of 15 other elements and a hurried deadline...

Embedded Graphics do not show in Links Panel?

I'm guessing this is an embedded graphic. I received a packaged file for print, all is fine, but I'm pondering the "image" shown. (I was curious how they formatted the rules and type and started selecting)
After removing everything else from the document, Find Font show no fonts used; the links panel is empty; info for the frame lists nothing; it is not outlined type. One layer; show hidden characters is on.
The file package report lists Links and Images: 1 link (a stock photo used on page 1), 0 missing, 0 embedded.

I've been playing with building my own "Info" panel. It isn't as pretty as the built-in one, but it gives me better "raw" file format information in some cases. It would be interesting to see what it reports as the object type, if you want to send me your doc ...

Link panel is not working in CS4

The link panel does not show any links. I have tried various workspaces and panel options, rebooting, cursing. Nothing works. No links show. But the links do work. they are not borken. It is just the panel that is broken. Does anyone have any ideas how to get it to work. It did work at one time.

Perhaps your images are not linked, as they should be, but copied and pasted into the document.
Check by correctly 'placing' an image into your InDesign, rather than copy/paste or drag/drop -- does it appear in the Links panel?

Links Panel doesn't display actual ICC Profile

Hello. My Link Panel displays "ICC Profile: Document CMYK" on any cmyk image I place, no matter what profile the image bears, and no matter if in Colour Settings the Colour Management Policies is set to Preserve Embedded Profiles or Off. Even if within InDesign I convert it to something completely different, I still get the same information. I'm pretty sure that's not what's supposed to happen, but I'm completely blank on this. Could anyone help me out, please? Thanks a lot.

Which file format do you use for the placed image? EPS?

False Overset Text in Links Panel

Mac OX 10.6.4
CS5
This is the problem I'm encountering: When I export to .pdf, Indesign Crashes. I've been able to narrow it down to one specific file and actually specific pages. But here is something I've noticed and cannot figure out. I've got three .psd linked files that are showing up as overset (OV) in the links panel, therefore when I click on them ID says it can't show me them because they are in over set text. But my live preflight says there is no over set text. ID jumps to pages still when I click that link but that whole story has no overset text. (i.e. not red overset in the outbox and no overset text in story editor mode. I can't figure out where those three linked objects are or how to select them to delete them. Any thoughts?

I would suggest running through the same steps as above (which it sounds like you've done) to see if you can isolate a problem, and in addition you might want to try exporting the stories to InDesign Tagged Text, then create a new file, move over the master pages, and place all the exported stories.
Also, be sure everyone is updated to the 7.5.3 patch.
dcald wrote:
The links panel indicates that the images are in overset text but we know for a fact that they are from a previous issue and are no longer in the ID file. Also, preflight indicates that there is no overset text in the file. It is one flow thoughout the entire file. Attempts to create PDF fail consistently. Each time someone has had to build the file again from scratch which for a file over 60 pages long, is not good for feelings towards the ID/InCopy.
This implies to me that you "recycle" document instead of building a template. ID is pretty stable, but no layout program is perfect and each time you do a save you introduce the possibility of small errors in the file. Somnetimes those small errors become big problems.
You can reduce the risk of problems on recurring publications by creating a template that contains your master pages, color swatches, styles, and any "static" content that might not be on a master page but still does not change from version to version. Each new version should be made from the template, so it is always a fresh second-generation copy.

Missing image links NOT alerted, and not in Links panel

Don't know if this is a consequence of shifting my files and account across to a new Mac Pro, and re-configuring hard drive locations where linked image files are, but... I'm working on a document that spanned systems - finally coming to completion, and I'm writing the print PDF and found this problem.
InDesign CC 9.2.1 running on Mavericks 10.9.2 is NOT indicating missing links images in the Links panel. In fact it's not indicating the image on the page is even in the document - it doesn't appear in the Links panel, even though I see the image on the page.
I noticed this when proof checking a high res print PDF, and the image looked low-res. Odd as it shouldn't be. Went back to InDesign file to interrogate the image, and found when I clicked on it, it wasn't highlighted in the Links panel - where I have the Warnings, dpi and other columns active so I can quickly check problems. It wasn't there at all. InDesign seems to be blind to the image. When I right click the rogue images on the page I don't get the 'Graphics' section at the bottom of the drop down menu as I do with ok images. I guess because InDesign doesn't even know it's there?
Basically the image is visibly on the page, but InDesign doesn't appear to know about it..... What gives? I'm having to go through a long document now clicking on each image to check it's showing in the Links panel, then relinking every image that appears to be completely lost as far as InDesign is concerned not even knowing it's there.
I have "Reset All Warning Dialogues". Made no difference.
I worry about what other files are going to do this to me now and how much time will be wasted carefully checking validity of every image.

Thanks Peter, maybe that's it although I don't recall using that method of putting the image in the layout. It's not something I would normally do. Its some months ago mind you, and the client did send me a bunch of images to consider using so I may have just dragged their images into my early layout while scamping up the first draft, and it may be these images that have been 'lost' by I.D.
I normally create an image frame into which, using Edit - Place, select the image from a folder on the drive.
Sometimes (because the preview of images in the ID Place dialogue is so slow to build) I view images in a Finder window and select from there, drag-and-drop into a pre-sized Image frame in I.D.
I may have dragged an image direct from the Finder into Indesign not first creating an image frame for it to be placed into. But I thought I.D. would still note it as a Link asset, else why allow images of any kind into the layout if Links doesn't keep track of them for pre-press proofing use etc.
The (in the end just 4) images that were completely unknown to InDesign were all in image frames, scaled and cropped within the frame bounds. So I wasn't to know months later that I may have drag-dropped the image files uncropped etc into ID then subsequently cropped them (if indeed I had).
If you're suggesting this method of adding images quickly into I.D. won't list them in the Links panel, then I will make a conscious effort never to use that quick method again!

Images in document are not consistently showing as highlighted in Links panel in InDesign CC

Hi all,
I am working with some very long documents with tons and tons of images. Often I need to view the name of the image in the links panel but after a while of working in the document, the images no longer show as being highlighted in the links panel. If I close the document and reopen, then once again things will work correctly and if I click on an image, it will be highlighted in the links panel...but then a moment later it stops working again. This is so frustrating:( It's obviously a bug. Is anyone else experiencing this?
And a quick question regarding this....is there way to search for an item in the links panel if I DO know the file name of the image, without having to scroll through hundreds of images (that also seem to be out of order - not listed alphabetically)
Thank you in advance

But I can clearly see the highlight in both CS6 AND CC when I click on an image...but after a short while of working in CC the highlight no longer works in CC:
CS6:
CC:
I am just SO used to ctrl-clicking on the highlighted link to access further functions. When the image link is not highlighted, I cannot ctrl-click on the link anymore because I don't know which the link is!

Images aren't being displayed in the links panel

I am trying to locate the source file for images in an InDesign CS6 document, so that I can use them within another project (Muse). I had planned to use the links panel to see the path for each image. However, only a few of my graphics/images are being displayed in the links panel. Most images are not showing up at all (I would expect them to show as 'missing' in the links panel if they had been moved or deleted). How can InDesign display the image in InDesign but not recognize the image as an asset in the Links panel? Could this be due to the way the image was imported? If so is there any way to export the image or save the image out of InDesign?
Help!

Did you put those images into the ID document? Did someone else?
Is it possible that someone copied and pasted those images from Photoshop (or another application) into ID. If so, that's the problem.
I'm not too sure you can retrieve the images at their proper resolutions, though.

Why doesn't my Links panel work?

Pix, etc not listed in links panel. I know there's a quick answer to this question but our corporate idiots who built this forum didn't bother making it possible for anyone to actually search the forum directly, a feature that has been available on every other forum in the whole world since there were forums. So, what happened to my links panel? No pictures listed.

Hi dkd;alkje;oihp[oihjl (is that short for something?),
Possibly because there are no links in your document? The images may have been inserted with Copy/Paste, and that leaves no trail to the original files. There is no way to repair that.
If you are pretty sure there should be links, try saving the file as INX (CS3 and older) or IDML (CS4 (and probably newer)), then re-opening that file. It might repair stuff that broke somewhere.
Alternatively, if you don't see any links in any file, even if you just placed them in the recommended way (using Place), your ID may have been damaged. Try the advice in the big yellow banner at the top of this forum to reset your preferences.

Links do not appear in links panel in inDesign CS4

I don't recall when this happened but I no longer have any links in the Links Panel in inDesign CS4 in ANY of my documents old, new, it doesn't matter. If I package a file it gathers all the links if I need to update a link I have to go to the original link outside of inDesign to find it. I have found other problems like this in other forums but have not been successful with the solutions.
Can anyone please please help me with this??
Thanks
Marilyn Glisci

Replace Your Preferences

Any way to export several columns from the Links panel?

This was originally posted to the InDesign forum, was suggested there might be a script that could achieve this?
Working on a textbook with hundreds of illustrations. Each Chapter has up to 100. Need to get several columns of data (file name and page # that it appears on) exported from the Links Panel (in sorted order) so they can be dropped into a spreadsheet. I am using TextWrangler which will dump out all the filenames in a folder, but it sorts alphabetically and I really want them sorted by the Page Numbers where they appear.

This script creates a CSV file on the desktop that you can import in Excel. The file name is the same as the name of active indesign document.
Kasyan
var scriptName = "Generate list of links";
if (app.documents.length == 0) ErrorExit("No documents are open. Please open a document and try again.");
var page, allGraphics, graphic;
var text = "File name;Page\r";
var doc = app.activeDocument;
for (var i = 0; i < doc.pages.length; i++) {
     page = doc.pages[i];
     allGraphics = page.allGraphics;
     for (var k = 0; k < allGraphics.length; k++) {
          graphic = allGraphics[k];
          if (graphic.itemLink != null) {
               text += graphic.itemLink.name + ";" + page.name +"\r";
WriteToFile(text);
//-------------------------------------- FUNCTIONS ---------------------------------------------
function WriteToFile(text) {
     var theFile = new File("~/Desktop/" + GetFileNameOnly(doc.name) + ".csv");
     theFile.open("w");
     theFile.write(text);
     theFile.close();
function ErrorExit(error, icon) {
     alert(error, scriptName, icon);
     exit();
function GetFileNameOnly(myFileName) {
     var myString = "";
     var myResult = myFileName.lastIndexOf(".");
     if (myResult == -1) {
          myString = myFileName;
     else {
          myString = myFileName.substr(0, myResult);
     return myString;

Art used in ID documents used to display in the links panel. Now links is empty.

Photoshop art used in ID documents used to display in the links panel in IN_CS6 on a mac. Now links is empty.
Where did the links list go???

Are you sure the art is linked and not pasted? Can you select it, right click and choose edit original? If you can and the links panel is empty you probably need to trash the prefs: Replace Your Preferences

Nothing in links panel.

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