relative links vs. absolute paths feature STILL MISSING!

[tobnicht]

Since about 2 years an important feature for collaborate Work is missing. Publisher urgently needs relative links! I know that this feature Request already exists several times in this forum but I think it needs a refresh! 😉

I work in a team that shares publisher files via Dropbox. As soon as an other user links an image and saves the afpub file, the next Mac user opening it has to relink the images. We found out (thanks to this forum) , that it is enough to find one image file and all other files are recognised automatically but if there are subfolders this process still takes a lot of time. 

PLEASE dear developers ad the possibility to choose „relative links“ like other layout programs do! 

Kontext: We as a team switched from Scribus (veeery slow, but free) and since about 10 years relative paths were no issue there.

Toby, Austria

[walt.farrell]

Supposedly Publisher does support relative links, but only for the situation where you have a directory that contains:

• The .afpub file; and
• A subdirectory containing the Linked files. (Perhaps it would also work if there were multiple subdirectories at this level, containing Linked files.)

 

[tobnicht]

28 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Supposedly Publisher does support relative links, but only for the situation where you have a directory that contains:

• The .afpub file; and
• A subdirectory containing the Linked files. (Perhaps it would also work if there were multiple subdirectories at this level, containing Linked files.)

 

Hi Walt!

That ist the Situation but does not work:

churchpaper.afpub
> Subfolder: Pictures

if one of the team members places an new picture the next person opening the document on his computer becomes a message that ressources are missing. because the absolute path bevor the Dropbox folder is different. e.g.: User/MyMac/Dropbox/Churchpapter/July > there is the afpub file. And in the July folder is one with all the images. A new editor always has to "show" publisher one missing picture...

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

7 hours ago, tobnicht said:

Since about 2 years an important feature for collaborate Work is missing. Publisher urgently needs relative links! I know that this feature Request already exists several times in this forum but I think it needs a refresh! 😉

I work in a team that shares publisher files via Dropbox. As soon as an other user links an image and saves the afpub file, the next Mac user opening it has to relink the images. We found out (thanks to this forum) , that it is enough to find one image file and all other files are recognised automatically but if there are subfolders this process still takes a lot of time. 

PLEASE dear developers ad the possibility to choose „relative links“ like other layout programs do! 

Kontext: We as a team switched from Scribus (veeery slow, but free) and since about 10 years relative paths were no issue there.

Toby, Austria

It ain’t two years ago Affinity Publisher was released, it was last summer, mid 2019...

If we all be a little patient here, functionalities and features will certainly be added in the tempo Serif Labs can manage...

Hold in mind that almost whole Publisher team is working on the iPad version of Affinity Publisher just now!

[tobnicht]

I do not agree. Beta users suggested this feature 2018. With a reason: it is basic. 🤓

iPad Version is nice. Sure, but i think most publishing is still done on desktops. Even on my 15 inch MacBook working is a pain.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

2 minutes ago, tobnicht said:

I do not agree. Beta users suggested this feature 2018. With a reason: it is basic. 🤓

iPad Version is nice. Sure, but i think most publishing is still done on desktops. Even on my 15 inch MacBook working is a pain.

Hmmm... Can’t understand then why you’re using Affinity Publisher if it is a pain??

I don’t understand some people here - we are talking about an DTP application that has one year on the market, meanwhile competitors have been around for 20-30 years, and, cost 10x or more then APub...?

[tobnicht]

2 hours ago, AffinityMakesMeSmile said:

Hmmm... Can’t understand then why you’re using Affinity Publisher if it is a pain??

I don’t understand some people here - we are talking about an DTP application that has one year on the market, meanwhile competitors have been around for 20-30 years, and, cost 10x or more then APub...?

You got me wrong. Maybe it is my englisch. This is not my mother Language. 😂 Affinity Publisher is great! I became a huge Affinity fan the last 2 years. 

What I wanted to say: It is a pain to work on a "small" screen. That is why I can not imagine to do DTP on an iPad. Maybe I am wrong. Did not have a iPad for a long time.

Working with Scribus on an Mac causes a lot of pain. It is sloooooooow. That is why I insisted to switch to Publisher. 

Relative paths is still important. But maybe I am the only working in a Team... what is hard to imagine.
 

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

22 minutes ago, tobnicht said:

You got me wrong. Maybe it is my englisch. This is not my mother Language. 😂 Affinity Publisher is great! I became a huge Affinity fan the last 2 years. 

What I wanted to say: It is a pain to work on a "small" screen. That is why I can not imagine to do DTP on an iPad. Maybe I am wrong. Did not have a iPad for a long time.

Working with Scribus on an Mac causes a lot of pain. It is sloooooooow. That is why I insisted to switch to Publisher. 

Relative paths is still important. But maybe I am the only working in a Team... what is hard to imagine.
 

Ok... Thanks for clearing that out

For me, Affinity Publisher on my iPad Pro 12.9” 2020 edition will be the best thing ever to iPad!

[Pšenda]

12 hours ago, tobnicht said:

it needs a refresh!

Just attach your post to the original request (as stated in the forum rules) and it will be updated/refreshed.

[Like, would like more if…]

Please address this.

As another user who works collaboratively with others on dropbox the fact the links are user explicit and not file relative is a nightmare. (And I too love Publisher and Affinity products in general!)

Large files with mass resources (supposedly all on our shared space) will just crash. Smaller ones usually throw up resource errors and then can be fixed.

This too is a pain as Publisher does not search folders for other files when you locate one of them, so even if missing resources are only in 3 locations for example you have to replace them individually in the resource manager. Hard work and frustrating… prevents proper collaboration.

[manandmouse]

I design and create Publisher documents for my customers. They edit them. 

We are using Dropbox to share files. Each Dropbox client gets it's own absolut path. Publisher brakes al links when editing the document with another Dropbox client. This is horrible and must be fixed. 

Most DTP apps have both relative and absolute paths. If the absolute path is "changed", it can use the relative path. This is not rocket science. It's just common sense. If there should be one or the other, relative path should be used. 

This works in all other DTP apps as I know, i.e InDesign and FrameMaker. Please fix this ASAP.

[gaufde]

I completely agree! Please add robust relative path support. To me, this seems like a relatively small software change that will make a huge improvement for users.

[Kortex]

Hello,
impossible to integrate this software into a corporate workflow (with git, svn or teams file server) without two features:
  - the relative paths for the resource files (we are in 2022 damn it at the end!)
  - the filename variables in the exports (impossible to generate templates if the export cannot be dependent on the filename)

thanks to Serif for correcting his absurd policy of pushing us back to competition!

[herrkjeldsen]

+1 on this. (Working) Relative paths is critical to any large scale production, any collaborative production, as well as any mac/pc combined production. Proper solid relative paths handling has to be one of first things implemented on something like Publisher.

[Like, would like more if…]

This will work if you update. This is a very old feed on a v1 Publisher forum. 
 

Working with Publisher 2.1.1 and Dropbox v182.4.6427 this works exactly as it should. 
 

Don’t expect a v1 fix. 

[herrkjeldsen]

Indeed, it seems to be an issue with macos and dropbox. It works fine on PC 👍My bad for posting in wrong thread btw. I do wish relative paths worked with books too though.

(using publisher v2)

Edited September 14, 2023 by herrkjeldsen
add publisher v2