Sharing InDesign Links between Mac & Windows

Question

In our marketing department we have a mix of Windows & Mac computers all running Adobe CS5.5.

The problem we're having is that the Windows users will create an InDesign document with links to files such as M:\image1.jpg. Of course when a Mac use opens this up, the links don't work because Macs have no such thing as drive letters. We're also having the problem the other way around.

Does anyone know of a solution to this problem other than making our entire department Windows or Mac?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Rather than setting up a drive letter for the network share, which will give you problems, add the network share(s) to your Favorites in Bridge and drag assets into your layouts from Bridge or Mini-Bridge. The paths stored in the InDesign links will be full network paths, and both sets of machines should have no problem finding them. This is the more usual InDesign workflow.

Answer 2

It's not exactly elegant but ...

You could write a jsx to do some grepping on the link paths. Once you had it set up, it could run in an instant.

Answer 3

You could also package the files, which included all links and fonts in a folder.

Alternately, you could embed the images into the files like so:

Select a file in the Links panel.
Do any of the following:
Choose Embed Link in the Links panel menu.

If there are multiple instances of the file, choose Embed All Instances Of [Filename] in the Links panel menu. To embed only one instance, select it and choose Embed Link.

The file remains in the Links panel marked with the embedded-link icon .

Answer 4

In our company similar situation with network links. As a result, I made a small script. Maybe this will help:

var doc     = app.activeDocument;
var links   = doc.links;
var counter = 0;

var PATH_FROM   = "\\Volumes\\";
var PATH_TO     = "\\\\Server\\";

for (var i = links.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {
    if (links[i].status == LinkStatus.LINK_MISSING) {

        link            = links[i];
        file_path       = link.filePath;
        new_file_path   = "none";
        new_file_path   = file_path.replace(PATH_FROM, PATH_TO);

        new_file = new File(new_file_path);
        if ( new_file.exists ) {
            link.relink(new_file);
            link.update();
            counter++;
        }
        else {
            alert("Can't find the file:\n" + new_file_path);
        }
    }
}

if ( counter > 0 ) {
    alert("Replaced " + counter + " links");
}
else {
    alert("No links replaced");
}

P.S. Sorry for my English. :)