Publisher freezes when trying to import a docx file with linked images

[Interior Book Design]

To link images is the gold standard, not just in Publisher and InDesign, but also in Word. I tell my customers to always link their images to the Word file, not to embed them. Linked images don't loose quality, this technique helps keeping the file size of the Word file (ID, Pub) small.

However, when I try to import a Word document with linked images into Publisher ... Publisher freezes.

1.8.0.523 and older versions. Win 10.

[Gabe]

Hi @Interior Book Design,

Can you attach the docx and its resources so we can have a look?

[Interior Book Design]

In this case, I can't. It's client's work and my valued customer would not be amused to see their content in this board. I'm not even allowed to share this convent, even if I would upload it directly to your server, I'm sorry. (It was a long document with many images. Just my daily work.)

However, If I import Word documents with linked images, the images don't show, anyway. The attached files may serve as an example: Word file with LINKED image and Publisher file with imported Word file.

SerifsVision.afpub

SerifsVision_2.docx

Note: I've been working for many publishing houses for more than 20 years. We've always accepted manuscripts with linked images, only. This was the case 25 years ago and it still hasn't changed. Yet, selfpublishers or very small publishers, who are less experienced, mainly embed their images which often impairs the image quality. (If not customized otherwise, Word compresses the image and reduces the resolution to 220 dpi.) So, as a professional tool, Publisher should support linked images in Word because linking images it the professional way.

[Joachim_L]

First of all: Word and professional in one sentence makes me shiver.

Unfortunately I have no Word, but linked images indeed won't appear in APu. But ... when I do this scenario with LibreOffice Writer, embedded images are not scaled down in dpi. There is no change even in quality as I can judge. If you want to have linked images in APu embedded in Word, you can make them linked with the Resource Manager.

Edit: Did not see this in the first place, OP uses beta .523. I made my tests with .531.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Joachim_L
More information

[Gabe]

Thanks. I logged this with our developers. 

[Patrick Connor]

We have made fixes/improvements to this area (Unable to import linked image from DOCX file) of the program in the latest customer beta. If you would like to try these changes the beta software is available in the forum posts listed below.

The latest beta builds are downloadable from links at the top of each of these beta forum posts.

• Affinity Publisher 1.8.0.556 for Windows
• Affinity Publisher 1.8.0.556 for Mac

These betas install parallel, next to the release version (they do not overwrite your release) and so the fixes can be tried in the beta without affecting your normal workflow in the release version.

Once these programs have been through a full beta process the change will be released in a future free 1.8.0 update/patch to all customers.