Opening and relink a doc in Indesign

I am trying to take an Indesign document, as well as all of the elements linked to it, and drop it into a folder.(This part is already done)
Once it is in this folder, I want to open the file and relink the elements via a script with no user interaction.
I need the links to point to just a folder (i.e. \elementname.jpg) instead of a full path (i.e. C:\Files\elementname.jpg).
I am using VB scripting and CS4.
Currently, the only VB scripting I have done is to create a blank document that fits the size of the file.
Can anyone help or let me know if this is possible?

No can do...
ID will Place a pdf, not edit it.
There is a plug in, PDF2ID, might be cost justifiable if you are going to do this occasionally (Really bad idea, really bad)
There is a widely known program which will open the pdf, widely frowned upon, strongly discouraged by all who represent Adobe...it is one of their flagship programs.
Save the pdf as a Word file, Place the Word file, rebuild that file from scratch, tedious. ..

Similar Messages

How can I use Automator to open and save Word docs with links?

Hi-
I'm having trouble building a Workflow to open and save Word docs with links.
My Workflow so far:
1. Get Finder items
2. Copy Finder items (to new folder)
3. Rename selected items
4. Open selected items (Word docs)
Three problems occur.
The first is a Word 2004 problem -- I can't get the warning "This document has links in it; do you want to open it with/without updating the links" to go away (Unilke the Macro warning toggle capability, there is nothing in the Preferences for Word 2004 that addresses the links warning, as far as I can tell; any insight you can shed on this would be terrific.)
The second problem happens with Automator: if I manually accept the update of the first document's links, Automator opens that document but then halts completely, even though I've instructed it to open multiple documents.
The third problem I have is that there's no Finder action in Automator that allows me to save the document that's now open (as far as I can see).
Any suggestions for how to fix? If I can get this to work, and scheduled in iCal, it will be an unbelievable time saver.
Thanks,
Jeremy
PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hi there Jeremy,
to do this you are going to have to add in some Run AppleScript steps...
These will rely on GUI Scripting. So first you need to activate GUI Scripting.
Now we need to add in a Run AppleScript action to the end of your workflow...
This will replace your current number 4 in the workflow (Open Selected...)
click here to open this script in your editor<pre style="font-family: 'Monaco', 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; overflow:auto; color: #222; background: #DDD; padding: 0.2em; font-size: 10px; width:400px">on run {input, parameters}
set allItems to every item of input
repeat with currItem in allItems
tell application "TextWrangler"
open currItem
end tell
activate application "TextWrangler"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "TextWrangler"
delay 2
--when the Word document is opened I have told it to press okay !
--I don't know what key you want it to press in the dialog box
keystroke return
delay 2
--save the doc
keystroke "s" using command down
delay 5
--close the doc
keystroke "w" using command down
end tell
end tell
end repeat
return input
end run</pre>
The above script should open each Word Document, press a button in the dialog box then do a save and then close the doc...then loop through the rest of them.
You need to replace the name Text Wrangler with Microsoft Word (or whatever it is called!), I don't have it on my Mac.
You will have to let me know what button needs pressing in the first dialog, if it isn't the 'highlighted ' one then we will have to amend the script...
regards
Ric

My folders take forever to open and then the docs within take a long time for the icon to pop up. the same thing with moving itmes from the desktop to a folder, and also emptying the trashh

my folders take forever to open and then the docs within take a long time for the icon to pop up. the same thing with moving itmes from the desktop to a folder, and also emptying the trashh

Don't know if that would be a failing hard drive, but it may be that you are out of available space. How much hard drive space do you have available? Please highlight the Macintosh HD icon and then press Command and I for a get info window. Once open, please copy and post the following:
Capacity:
Used:
Available:
Mac OS requires a minimum of 10 - 15% of total hard drive space available and empty at all times in order to operate properly.

When will we be able to open and edit PDF documents in Indesign?

Hi
It would be nice if Indesign could open PDF files.
When will this happen (without a plugin)?
Today I need to open the files in Illustrator. The customer prefers to use Indesign, so even though Indesign can export pdf documents I will have to tell the customer and the program can not open pdf files. This I find really weird.
Hopefully opening and editing pdf files in Indesign will happen real soon.
Have a great day!

Paal, I'm sorry for that little out-lash. There is nothing wrong with inquiring the feasability of a new feature. The problem is that PDF has been an "output intended format" from the very beginning.
An Illustrator file (from a fairly modern version) also is a PDF file, for all intents and purposes. You can rename an .AI file to .PDF and use it anywhere, with any software that supports PDF (so that's excepting Apple's Preview, probably ;-) ). Moreover, you can still open and edit this PDF with Illustrator and get all of your objects, symbols, layers, paragraph styles, and guides back!
That's because in fact this file *contains* all this extra information in a data block marked "For Private Use Only". Other software, if adhering to Adobe's PDF specs, will simply ignore this (and thus my little jab at Apple's Preview). Does that mean you can edit such a PDF with *any* software? No -- the Illustrator data is "proprietary", and the details are not published to use by other software developers. Similarly, one could envisage InDesign to do the same. Yes, it would lead to *huge* files -- but hey, you would be able to open THAT file into InDesign and edit it. But not with any other software!
The meta-problem is that an extremely large amount of this private data would be *extremely* dependant on the software that was used to create it with. What would an Illustrator file do with InDesign's GREP styles? What would InDesign do with Illlustrator's brush styles, or symbols? Illustrator allows slanted guides, InDesign does not.
And let's not focus purely on a combo of ID and Illy; Photoshop *also* outputs PDFs, and its graphic data has yet another set of requirements.
So all of Adobe's software would need to be able to parse *every others' data* to some degree. Well, it's still not "unconceivable" as all of this would need to be done in one office (note that in that single office there are still vast differences in something as straightforward as a User Interface across the CS suite). But there are lots of other software developers out there, and they *all* want to write out PDFs, all with their own internal data! (Think of the different requirements between an architectural app and one for graph plotting.)
A *possible* solution would be to add "more" metadata to a PDF without crossing into the realm of "every single bit". Article tagging is an example of this -- it tells software that wants to know in which order *plain text* is to appear, and as such it serves as meta-data for plain text content. But the mind reels thinking of what more to add -- a list of used GREP styles per paragraph would probably be useless to anyone else.
But such an idea will not solve the problem, as 1. this meta-data is optional (lazy programmers would be allowed to say "nothing to see here, move along"), and 2. this data would only get added to *newly created* files, and it would not retroactively make older PDFs editable ...
(Now that's just the *short* version :-) h

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No can do...
ID will Place a pdf, not edit it.
There is a plug in, PDF2ID, might be cost justifiable if you are going to do this occasionally (Really bad idea, really bad)
There is a widely known program which will open the pdf, widely frowned upon, strongly discouraged by all who represent Adobe...it is one of their flagship programs.
Save the pdf as a Word file, Place the Word file, rebuild that file from scratch, tedious. ..

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Try using the Save As command in PageMaker. It will rebuild the file, ideally eliminating potencial causes of conflicts that PM can handle but ID can't.
Another suggestion is to split the PM file in smaller ones. This not only will make the files more digestible for ID, but will also serve as a diagnostic procedure: the files that ID won't open are the ones that have whatever ID is complaining about. In this case, you can pinpoint where the problem lies (maybe embedded images or stray elements in PM) and try to correct it.

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Since updating to SP3 :
1. Excel documents, when opened, show as blank in Excel.
Activity Log show as Opened
2. Closing the Doc does not return doc to library
Activity Log shows nothing .... ie - the doc is still open
3. I need to Reset the doc to do any further actions on the Doc
4. After Checking out the Excel Doc, I opened it
Made no changes to the doc
Closed it
GroupWise kicked up an E511 Error during the Close - Unable to REturn
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I wasn't in DMS mode while editing the doc !!

It's even worse than I thought
On a very rare occasion, opening the same problematic Excel doc works
But most of the time it does not
Per my previous post, this occurs on both T/S 2003 (with office 2003)
and T/S 2008 R2 (with Office 2010)
Steve wrote:
> GW was installed in 'admin' mode ...
>
> The gwappint.inf files all look good
>
> I'll keep checking
>
>
> Thing is - this used to work just fine before SP3
>
>
>
> MarkDissington wrote:
>
> >
> > May be something specific to do with Terminal Server, Excel isn't
> > ODMA compliant and all the 'integrations' are done through adding
> > macros in to the core. If Terminal Server is cleaning up those
> > macros so they don't affect other users then the integrations will
> > be missing. I don't use Terminal Server, is there an 'admin' mode
> > for installing software that stores the changes for all users?
> >
> > Other than that I'm out of ideas, sorry.
> >
> > M

Help! Can someone open and save a file in InDesign CS4 for me?? (idml to inx)

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I'm sending you an upload link by private message....

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Hi!
Whenever I write a document in Pages and export it as a Word document and then opens it again in Pages, maybe afer it have been edited in Word, the table of contents, for one thing, is changed. I noticed that when I open it as a Word document it now contains a lot more styles. For example Sub-heading and Sub-heading A. This is really annoying cause it messes up the document.
Can I change this in any way and get it to look like the Pages document I had before?
Thanks

Rune
Well I'm glad you have found a workaround. It's difficult for me to understand how your document was being messed up.
I thought you had Word. To clarify what I was talking about, Word deals with styles slightly differently to Pages. In Pages all the styles are associated with the document. When Word opens a document it adds a whole bunch of styles to what's already in there from what it calls document and global templates - this is the source of the extra styles that irritated you. These templates are associated with each user of Word.
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I am using:
2012 MacMini
Mac OSX 10.8.3
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 gb 1600 MHz DDR3
InDesign CS6
Version 8.0.1
I have run software update
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Saving a file to idml crashes InDesign.
Assistance would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.

Via Font Book, I checked all fonts with pro in the name. All appear OK.
I created a new document with nothing in it with same result. My crash report (http://pastebin.com/Rgd5AAHZ) was a little different under VM Regions.
Do you believe a re-install would solve the issue?
Thanks again for your help. It is appreciated.

Batch renaming and relinking in InDesign CS4

Is there a plug-in available for InDesign that will batch rename and relink placed images?
In Quark, I used Badia Link Renamer which worked perfectly but it's not available for InDesign. (Was told they hope to have it incorporated into BigPicture for CS5.)
Is there something similar currently available for InDesign?
Essentially I need it to rename and relink files with random names to structured names such as:
001_Cust_000123456789_art_r1.tif
(I love that Bridge does batch renaming but then I have to manually update links in InDesign which is extremely time-consuming. I've also manually renamed/relinked files individually with Adobe Dialogue but it doesn't seem to be part of CS4.)
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Been looking for something for months.
Thanks!

Here is my last version of the script, it deals with multiple instances of the same file.
Kasyan
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var myAllLinks = myDoc.allGraphics;
var myMultipleLinks = new Array();
var myLinksCounter = 1;
var myPrepend = prompt("Example: thebook_08765", "Job description", "Please enter job description");
if (!myPrepend) exit();
var response = confirm("Warning: You are about to rename all images linked to the foremost Indesign Document - proceed? Keep in mind - it is not reversible!", false, "Rename Links Script");
if ( response == true )
     WriteToFile("\r--------------------- Script started -- " + GetDate() + " ---------------------\n\n");
     for ( k = 0; k < myAllLinks.length; k++ )
          var myLinkName = myAllLinks[k].itemLink.name;
     crearLabels();
     var myPages = myDoc.pages;
     // Pages
     for ( p = 0; p < myPages.length; p++ )
          var myPageNumber = pad000(myPages[p].name);
          var myLinks = myPages[p].allGraphics;
          var myASCII = 97;
          for ( k = myLinks.length - 1; k >= 0; k-- )
               var myLink = myLinks[k].itemLink;
               if (myLink.extractLabel("relinked") != "yes") {
                    var myOldLinkName = myLink.name;
                    var myLinkUsage = LinkUsage( myLink );
                    var myExtension = myOldLinkName.substr(myOldLinkName.lastIndexOf( "." ));
                    if (LinkUsage(myLink) == 1)
                         var myNewLinkName = myPrepend + myPageNumber + String.fromCharCode( myASCII ) + myExtension;
                         var myOldImageHDfile = new File( myLink.filePath );
                         var myRenameResult = myOldImageHDfile.rename( myNewLinkName );
                         if (myRenameResult)     {
                              myLink.insertLabel("relinked", "yes");
                              myLink.relink( myOldImageHDfile );
                              try {
                                   myLink = myLink.update();
                              catch(err) {}
                              myASCII++;
                              WriteToFile(((myLinksCounter < 10) ? (" " + myLinksCounter) : myLinksCounter) + " - " + myOldImageHDfile.name + " --> " + myNewLinkName + "\n");
                              myLinksCounter++;
                         else {
                              if (new File(myOldImageHDfile.parent + "/" + myNewLinkName + myExtension).exists) {
                                   WriteToFile("CAN'T RENAME LINK -- " + myOldImageHDfile.name + " to " + myNewLinkName + " because the file already exists\n");
                              else {
                                   WriteToFile("CAN'T RENAME LINK -- " + myOldImageHDfile.name + "\n");
                    else {
                         if (!IsObjInArray(myLink, myMultipleLinks)) {
                              myMultipleLinks.push(myLink);
     var myMasterSpreads = myDoc.masterSpreads;
     // Master spreads
     for ( m = 0; m < myMasterSpreads.length; m++ )
          var myMastSpr = myMasterSpreads[m];
          var myPageNumber = myMastSpr.name;
          var myPrefix = myMastSpr.namePrefix;
          var myLinks = myMastSpr.allGraphics;
          var myASCII = 97;
          for ( n = myLinks.length - 1; n >= 0; n-- )
               var myLink = myLinks[n].itemLink;
               if (myLink.extractLabel("relinked") != "yes") {
                    var myOldLinkName = myLink.name;
                    var myExtension = myOldLinkName.substr(myOldLinkName.lastIndexOf( "." ));
                    if (LinkUsage(myLink) == 1)
                         var myLinkLetter = (myLinks.length == 1) ? "" : String.fromCharCode( myASCII );
                         var myNewLinkName = myPrepend + '_master_' + myPrefix + myLinkLetter + myExtension;
                         var myOldImageHDfile = new File( myLink.filePath );
                         var myRenameResult = myOldImageHDfile.rename( myNewLinkName );
                         if (myRenameResult) {
                              myLink.insertLabel("relinked", "yes");
                              myLink.relink( myOldImageHDfile );
                              try {
                                   myLink.update();
                              catch(err) {}
                              myASCII++;
                              WriteToFile(((myLinksCounter < 10) ? (" " + myLinksCounter) : myLinksCounter) + " - " + myOldImageHDfile.name + " --> " + myNewLinkName + "\n");
                              myLinksCounter++;
                         else     {
                              if (new File(myOldImageHDfile.parent + "/" + myNewLinkName + myExtension).exists) {
                                   WriteToFile("CAN'T RENAME LINK -- " + myOldImageHDfile.name + " to " + myNewLinkName + " because the file already exists\n");
                              else {
                                   WriteToFile("CAN'T RENAME LINK -- " + myOldImageHDfile.name + "\n");
                    else
                         if (!IsObjInArray(myLink, myMultipleLinks)) {
                              myMultipleLinks.push(myLink);
     // Multiple images
     if (myMultipleLinks.length > 0) {
          for ( a = myMultipleLinks.length - 1; a >= 0; a-- )
               processMultiUsedLinks(myMultipleLinks[a]);
     WriteToFile("\r--------------------- Script finished -- " + GetDate() + " ---------------------\r\r");
     if (myLinksCounter == 0) {
          alert("No links have been renamed", "Rename Links Script");
     if (myLinksCounter == 1) {
          alert("One link has been renamed", "Rename Links Script");
     else if (myLinksCounter > 1) {
          alert(myLinksCounter + " links have been renamed", "Rename Links Script");
//--------------------------------------------- Functions ------------------------------------------------
// Check how many times the link was placed
function LinkUsage(myLink) {
     var myLinksNumber = 0;
          for (var c = 0; c < myDoc.links.length; c++) {
          if (myLink.filePath == myDoc.links[c].filePath) {
               myLinksNumber += 1;
     return myLinksNumber;
// Relink the links placed more than once
function processMultiUsedLinks(myLink) {
     var myExtension = myLink.name.substr(myLink.name.lastIndexOf( "." ));
     var myMultiUsedLink = new Array();
     var myAllLinks = myDoc.links;
     for (var d = 0; d < myAllLinks.length; d++) {
          if (myAllLinks[d].filePath == myLink.filePath) {
               myMultiUsedLink.push(myAllLinks[d]);
     try {
          myLink.show();
     catch(err) {}
     var myNewLinkName = prompt ("Enter a name for this image", GetFileNameOnly(myLink.name), "This image is placed " + myMultiUsedLink .length + " times");
     if (myNewLinkName) {
          if ( myNewLinkName + myExtension != myLink.name ) {
               var myOldImageHDfile = new File( myLink.filePath );
               var myRenameResult = myOldImageHDfile.rename( myNewLinkName + myExtension );
               if (myRenameResult) {
                    myLink.insertLabel("relinked", "yes");
                    myLink.relink( myOldImageHDfile );
                    try {
                         myLink = myLink.update();
                    catch(err) {}
                    WriteToFile(((myLinksCounter < 10) ? (" " + myLinksCounter) : myLinksCounter) + " - " + myOldImageHDfile.name + " --> " + myNewLinkName + "\n");
                    myLinksCounter++;
                    for (f = myMultiUsedLink.length-1; f >= 0 ; f--)
                         var myCurrLink = myMultiUsedLink[f];
                         if ( myNewLinkName + myExtension != myCurrLink.name ) {
                              myCurrLink.insertLabel("relinked", "yes");
                              myCurrLink.relink( myOldImageHDfile );
                              try {
                                   myCurrLink = myLink.update();
                              catch(err) {}
               else     {
                    if (new File(myOldImageHDfile.parent + "/" + myNewLinkName + myExtension).exists) {
                         WriteToFile("CAN'T RENAME LINK -- " + myOldImageHDfile.name + " to " + myNewLinkName + myExtension + " because the file already exists\n");
                    else {
                         WriteToFile("CAN'T RENAME LINK -- " + myOldImageHDfile.name + "\n");
     UpdateAllOutdatedLinks();
// Clear labels in case this script has been already run on the current document
function crearLabels() {
     for (var f = 0; f < myDoc.links.length; f++) {
          if (myDoc.links[f].extractLabel("relinked") != "") {
               myDoc.links[f].insertLabel("relinked", "");
function UpdateAllOutdatedLinks() {
     for(var myCounter = myDoc.links.length-1; myCounter >= 0; myCounter--){
          var myLink = myDoc.links[myCounter];
          if (myLink.status == LinkStatus.linkOutOfDate){
               myLink.update();
function pad000(myNumber) {
     if (myNumber >= 1 && myNumber <= 9) {
          x = "0" + "0" + myNumber;
     } else if (myNumber >= 10 && myNumber <= 99) {
          x = "0" + myNumber;
     } else if (myNumber >= 100 && myNumber <= 999) {
          x = myNumber;
     return x;
function GetFileNameOnly(myFileName) {
     var myString = "";
     var myResult = myFileName.lastIndexOf(".");
     if (myResult == -1) {
          myString = myFileName;
     else {
          myString = myFileName.substr(0, myResult);
     return myString;
function IsObjInArray(myObj, myArray) {
     for (x in myArray) {
          if (myObj.filePath == myArray[x].filePath) {
               return true;
     return false;
function WriteToFile(myText) {
     myFile = new File("~/Desktop/Rename Links Script.txt");
     if ( myFile.exists ) {
          myFile.open("e");
          myFile.seek(0, 2);
     else {
          myFile.open("w");
     myFile.write(myText);
     myFile.close();
function GetDate() {
     var myDate = new Date();
     if ((myDate.getYear() - 100) < 10) {
          var myYear = "0" + new String((myDate.getYear() - 100));
     } else {
          var myYear = new String ((myDate.getYear() - 100));
     var myDateString = (myDate.getMonth() + 1) + "/" + myDate.getDate() + "/" + myYear + " " + myDate.getHours() + ":" + myDate.getMinutes() + ":" + myDate.getSeconds();
     return myDateString;

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Hi, Sammy.
Why not install a 3rd party PDF reader and Word Doc reader to help open and read pdf and micrsoft word (.doc) files or documents? You can google it and select one whose way of processing is simple and fast to help you with the related converting work. It will be better if it is totally manual and can be customized by users according to our own favors. Remember to check its free trial package first if possible. I hope you success. Good luck.
Best regards,
Arron

I'm trying to open a 900kb Word doc (240pages) in Pages but get this error message: Import Warning - A table was too big. Only the first 40 columns and 1,000 rows were imported.

I'm trying to open a 900kb Word doc (240pages) in Pages but get this error message: Import Warning - A table was too big. Only the first 40 columns and 1,000 rows were imported.

Julian,
Pages simply won't support a table with that many rows. If you need that many, you must use another application.
Perhaps the originator could use a tabbed list rather than a table. That's the only way you will be able to contain a list that long in Pages. You can do the conversion yourself if you open the Word document in LibreOffice, Copy the Table, Paste the Table into Numbers, Export the Numbers doc to CSV, and import to Pages. In Pages Find and Replace the Commas with Tabs.
There are probably other ways, but that's what comes to mind here.
Jerry

Unable to open indesign after migration to new mac all other programs open and work.

Unable to open indesign after migration to new mac all other programs open and work. Why? Running Yosemite 10.10.1 Indesign CS5

The keyword is "migration." Migrating or copying files for Adobe applications usually does not work. Not all of the necessary subsidiary files are copied to the right location.
You'll need to first clean up the mess with this tool:
Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6
Then download an installer from here:
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Opening and relink a doc in Indesign

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