How do links work?

[Tony Cotterill]

Can somebody please explain how Publisher manages it's linked files?

I use a shared remote dropbox area which holds all the links for a file within a directory. This works fine for everyone accessing the file.
However, if I move that file, even, say, just one directory up,  it loses ALL the links and defaults back to looking for them on my colleagues local computer.
Why?
I can well understand that if the LINK folder is moved or renamed it's going to confuse the afpub, but why can't the afpub simply remember which directory it needs to look at? Why does moving IT cause a link breakage?

Cheers,

Tony

[walt.farrell]

Without a picture of the directory structure, and what file(s) exist where, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

However, I think you might be saying that

• In your Dropbox you have a directory A, and
• In A you have your .afpub file and directory B. And
• In B you have the linked files.

If that's what you're saying, [Edit: and the problem occurs when you move the .afpub file,] then here is my guess: .

1. We've been told that a .afpub file records both an absolute path reference to each linked file, and (in the structure I described above) a relative link.
2. If everything works before you move the .afpub file, then it could mean that either the relative path (./B/whatever) is working, or that the absolute path is working.
3. However, it stops working when you move the .afpub file. Clearly, when you move the file the relative path won't work any more. But the failure indicates that the absolute path isn't working, either. And that means that the absolute path that was saved in the .afpub file doesn't match the actual current path leading to the linked files. That's a risk with cloud storage, since the absolute path names may change unpredictably from machine to machine, or even day to day.

If you hit this, then either (a) don't move the .afpub file, or (b) when you Open it, and get the message about missing files, chose Yes (not Resource Manager). Then, when you locate the first missing file, Publisher will find the rest of them that exist in the same directory.

[GarryP]

(Walt just got in before me; please read his advice first.)

If you move the linked file then Publisher will not know where it has gone.
If you move the folder where the linked file is then Publisher, again, will not know where it has gone.
Are you saying that moving one linked file (or the folder only it is in) breaks all the links in the document?
If you can give us some idea of the before and after folder structure then we might have a better idea of what’s happening.

[Tony Cotterill]

Hi chaps.

Thanks for the feedback. I also suspect it's an issue with using remote files.

However, attached is a crude sketch of my file structure to explain.

The file.apub is the main document and it is linked to the images contained in LINKS.

If I move file.afpub into ARCHIVES, for example, it will lose all its links when opened from with there.

This was my issue. I couldn't see why. The afpub ought to remember it's looking in LINKS wherever it happens to be sitting. If I move or rename LINKS then I fully understand why file.afpub is unable to find it, but this is not the case.

@walt.farrell Thanks for the tip about the mass relinking tip. INDD used to do that so I was sure Affinity could also, I just hadn't found it yet.

[walt.farrell]

57 minutes ago, Tony Cotterill said:

This was my issue. I couldn't see why. The afpub ought to remember it's looking in LINKS wherever it happens to be sitting. If I move or rename LINKS then I fully understand why file.afpub is unable to find it, but this is not the case.

Where was the .afpub file before you moved it? If it was in the folder I've marked below, then it would contain (from what we've been told) both absolute and relative links to the files in the Links folder.

If it wasn't in that marked folder, then it would have only absolute links.

In either case, once you move the .afpub file to another location, only the absolute links can work, because by moving only the .afpub file you break any relative links.

[Tony Cotterill]

The afpub was in the 'A' directory next to the 'ARCHIVE' folder.
I wasn't expecting relative links to be maintained, no. It was the absolute links I expected it to retain.

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, Tony Cotterill said:

The afpub was in the 'A' directory next to the 'ARCHIVE' folder.
I wasn't expecting relative links to be maintained, no. It was the absolute links I expected it to retain.

Thanks. The next question, then, is did you do all of that on one machine, or did you change machines?

If, on machine X, you move the .afpub file from the A folder into the ARCHIVE folder, and then (still on machine X, without rebooting or otherwise possibly disturbing the network infrastructure) you open the .afpub file, I would expect the links to work.

But if you open the .afpub file on machine Y, whether you've moved it or not, the absolute links might not work. Only relative links should be expected to work, unless you have mounted the Dropbox folder to the same specific drive letter on both machines, and have used that drive letter in accessing the linked files.

[Tony Cotterill]

Ah that would be it, I suspect.
I've just done your paragraph 1 and it worked fine.

before, the file had previously been amended by a remote working colleague? Even though he was linking to the same Links folder it seems the different machine causes the absolute link to be lost.

 

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, Tony Cotterill said:

before, the file had previously been amended by a remote working colleague? Even though he was linking to the same Links folder it seems the different machine causes the absolute link to be lost.

I believe that's what would happen. You have to ensure that the absolute network path to the folder is the same on both machines (and how you do that depends partly on what OS they use), or you have to use the proper setup to enable relative links to work. As I understand it, working with relative links would require putting the .afpub file in the folder I marked with a red X above.

[Tony Cotterill]

Ok. That's clearer now. Thanks Walt. And Garry.

Looks like we need to be very organised or resign ourselves to the occasional relinking exercise.

Cheers,

Tony

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Tony Cotterill said:

Looks like we need to be very organised or resign ourselves to the occasional relinking exercise.

That, or with more information about the OS you and your colleague(s) are using we might be able to advise on another method you could use to ensure that the network paths are the same everywhere