Publisher issue with linked files, 1.7 to 1.8 upgrade

[Nathan Shirley]

I have a Publisher document which contains multiple linked Designer files. When Publisher was in v1.7 I edited several of these Designer files within Publisher itself (double-clicking on them to do so). Now in v1.8 if I double-click on one of these to edit further, it pulls up the original file which never saved my (1.7) edits. So in effect all my Designer files within this Publisher project are trapped in limbo... they display with the changes I made in 1.7, but I can't edit them further.

Might there be a way to export these as Designer files and bring them back in? Or somehow tell Publisher to update the old changes to the original linked files?

[walt.farrell]

For a bit of historical context: in 1.7 a "Linked" .afdesign file in a Publisher document was kind of a hybrid. It was linked in the sense that Publisher would notice changes to the .afdesign document and either notify you it was changed, or automatically update the copy in the Publisher document. But it was embedded in the sense that the Publisher document had a full copy of the Designer document, and if you edited the .afdesign document within Publisher the changes were saved locally only, and not back to the original.

In 1.8, they operate as true Linked files, and when you make changes to them the changes are saved back to the original. And when editing the original is loaded, which is giving you your problem.

Here is a workaround for you that might help. It works in 1.8 and 1.8.2, but it relies on a bug which has been fixed in 1.8.3. So you should use it to recover your file(s) now, before you update to 1.8.3 which is coming out soon. (Tomorrow, apparently, for Mac, and I imagine soon after for Windows.)

If you are a user who bought the application from the Mac App Store or the Microsoft Store, you should probably disable automatic updating for the application via the Store settings to make sure you have time to do this before any automatic updating occurs.

With your document open, go to the Layers panel. Find the linked .afdesign document you're interested in. Double-click its thumbnail in the Layers panel. Do not double-click the object on the document page, and do not use Edit Document from the Context Toolbar. That should open it as an Embedded document, and if you're lucky it will still have your changes.

At that point, my recommendation would be to:

1. Select everything in the Layers panel, and Copy.
2. Open Designer, or switch to the Designer Persona in Publisher, and File > New from Clipboard.
3. Save under a new name.
4. Close the Embedded document window in Publisher.
5. Use the Replace Document button on the Context Toolbar of the Publisher document, and replace the old copy with the new one you just saved.

 

[lepr]

The following works on macOS. Hopefully, it works on Windows.

To be safe, make a backup of your 1.7 project files before doing this:

1. open the 1.7 afpub file in Publisher 1.8.
2. open the Resource Manager and select the pseudo-linked items that are listed as "Linked document"
3. click the Embed button to make the selected items become listed as "Embedded"
4. in macOS Finder (or Windows File Explorer), trash the out-of-date external documents
5. click the Make Linked button and, when prompted, select a destination folder to contain the truly linked documents that the app will create from the selected embedded items

The selected items will again be listed as "Linked" but now they really are linked to up-to-date external documents that have been created from the embedded documents.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, anon2. I wondered if that might work but forgot to check. It's a better workaround than mine.

[lepr]

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks, anon2. I wondered if that might work but forgot to check. It's a better workaround than mine.

It's important to trash the out-of-date external files at exactly step 4, otherwise the procedure will fail. Could you test my instructions on Windows, please?

[Nathan Shirley]

I'm on Windows and will try it now. Many thanks to both of you.

[Nathan Shirley]

Excellent, it worked perfectly. Thanks so much.

[lepr]

You're welcome