Moving Publisher files and keeping links

[Paul Martin]

I publish a members' magazine every few weeks with the issue reference being a number plus month/year. Beforehand, I create a folder structure for each issue entitled, say, Issue 12, October 2021. Sometimes I have to let the publication slip a couple of weeks and rename to, for instance, Issue 12, November 2021.

By this time I have about a dozen text and a similar number of graphics files, plus dummy layouts per issue.

Is there a preferred way to rename folders/move files to avoid damaging the internal links?

[thomaso]

When you have renamed a resource folder you can adjust the existing links in your .afpub, either when opening the document by choosing "Yes" in the appearing dialog + guiding to the 'new' folder. Or, after opening the .afpub, in the Resource Manager by clicking the "Relink" button to guide to the folder containing the links.

Alternativeley, if you rename the resource folder with the according .afpub being opened then Affinity will notice the altered paths and inform you. Not sure, possibly you woud need to activate before renaming the resource folder the option to "Automatically update linked resources (…)" in the app Preferences > General.

[walt.farrell]

43 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Alternativeley, if you rename the resource folder with the according .afpub being opened then Affinity will notice the altered paths and inform you. Not sure, possibly you woud need to activate before renaming the resource folder the option to "Automatically update linked resources (…)" in the app Preferences > General.

In that case (rename the folder) it might notice, but it would inform you the resources are Missing. The Preference you mentioned is for resources that are modified, not resources that are deleted (which is the result of renaming a resource folder) so I don't think that Preference would help.

[thomaso]

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In that case (rename the folder) it might notice, but it would inform you the resources are Missing. The Preference you mentioned is for resources that are modified, not resources that are deleted (which is the result of renaming a resource folder) so I don't think that Preference would help.

Thank you for clarifying this.  EDIT:  (relatively new feature, which I, honestly, haven't experienced yet). So does it mean, the one and only way to update altered resource paths is still the dialog window when opening the .afpub, – and there is no similar 1-click way for opened APub documents?  … Sorry, here I had confused Walt's note with the "Relink" option, – which in fact seems to be a good option in case of renamed resource folders.

The Help says:

Quote

Relink – appears in the place of Update for missing linked resources, allowing you to relocate them. Find and select a missing file using the pop-up dialog to relink it, or, if an entire folder containing multiple linked files has been moved, select the folder to automatically relink all missing files within that folder at once.

Edited October 28, 2021 by thomaso

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Sorry, here I had confused Walt's note with the "Relink" option, – which in fact seems to be a good option in case of renamed resource folders.

Yes, that's a good (the intended?) use for Relink.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Paul Martin said:

Is there a preferred way to rename folders/move files to avoid damaging the internal links?

I would suggest:

Folder named for the issue date
   Within that folder:
      The .afpub file
      A directory named as you wish, but for simplicity I'll say Images or Resources
          Within that Images/Resources folder: All the Linked images or documents you need for the issue.

With that arrangement, you are supposed to be able to rename the top folder (issue date) to another name, and everything is supposed to still work.

[thomaso]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Within that Images/Resources folder: All the Linked images or documents you need for the issue.

Do you know whether the paths of images in subfolders in this main resource folder would be auto-updated in APub if their parent folder will get relinked? Or would each  subfolder get relinked individually?

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Do you know whether the paths of images in subfolders in this main resource folder would be auto-updated in APub if their parent folder will get relinked? Or would each  subfolder get relinked individually?

The layout that is supposed to work is the one I showed. One parent directory, with 1 .afpub file and 1 resource directory. I don't know if the resource directory should/can have subdirectories or not. It cannot be renamed, without you having to Relink. But the name of the parent directory should not matter, and it can be renamed.

[thomaso]

11 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I don't know if the resource directory should/can have subdirectories or not.

I just tried a few situations and it appears that every used resource folder would need to get relinked separately, regardless of the nested structure of this folders.
For instance in a structure like…

Mainfolder
 |_ Linked Resources folder
    |__ HighRes folder
    |__ LowRes folder

… a change of any of this folder names + relink to the altered folder does not get used by the app to auto-recognize one of the other folders. If I change the Mainfolder or the Linked Resources folder name and relink it then both subfolders HighRes and LowRes need to get relinked individually, too.

[ This behavior maybe worth to have in mind especially for users of InDesign, where altered + relinked parts of paths get recognized + adjusted automatically for other instances using that parts in their path ]

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

a change of any of this folder names + relink to the altered folder does not get used by the app to auto-recognize one of the other folders. If I change the Mainfolder or the Linked Resources folder name and relink it then both subfolders HighRes and LowRes need to get relinked individually, too.

You would probably want to omit the Linked Resources Folder and have your high and low res folders directly in the Mainfolder. Even then, if you rename either of them, you will have to Relink. The only folder you can rename without Relinking is Mainfolder.

[Old Bruce]

15 hours ago, thomaso said:

ust tried a few situations and it appears that every used resource folder would need to get relinked separately, regardless of the nested structure of this folders.
For instance in a structure like…

Mainfolder
 |_ Linked Resources folder
    |__ HighRes folder
    |__ LowRes folder

… a change of any of this folder names + relink to the altered folder does not get used by the app to auto-recognize one of the other folders. If I change the Mainfolder or the Linked Resources folder name and relink it then both subfolders HighRes and LowRes need to get relinked individually, too.

Mainfolder.  <-- *
   PublisherDocument.afpub 
   |_ Linked Resources folder
      |__ HighRes folder
      |__ LowRes folder

 

* This folder can be renamed and nothing will need to be relinked. If the PubliserDocument.afpub is open in Publisher when the rename of Mainfolder to November 2021 occurs then there will be a bit of panic but a close and reopen will show things as linked and not missing.

[Paul Martin]

Thank you, Will et al. Looks like I will need to make proactive use of the Document/Resource Manager feature when this becomes necessary. Just out of curiosity, can anyone say whether the renaming changed paths features mentioned are a property of Windows or of Affinity? I sort of assumed it had to be the former.

[Paul Martin]

Just as an afterthought, this issue of maintaining paths/links is peculiarly relevant with a Publisher-type programme which is generally an "assembly line" sort of product with multiple sources.

After much moaning, I decided a few months ago to more or less completely move over to the Affinity programmes for creating publications and I am generally seeing a lot of benefits, though I'm still learning/deciding on practical details.

For instance, I've always tended to use PNG files for pictures, largely because of their transparency characteristics, and I'm still unsure whether to just insert Affinity Photo files instead. I'm completely baffled as to why my Designer files are often shown as having a Publisher icon - are affdesign and affpub actually the same file format?

[Old Bruce]

26 minutes ago, Paul Martin said:

are affdesign and affpub actually the same file format?

yes.

[Paul Martin]

Well, that rather explains it!

 

Paul

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Paul Martin said:

and I'm still unsure whether to just insert Affinity Photo files instead.

Standard image file formats are likely to be physically smaller (number of bytes) than Affinity native formats, if you're embedding. If you're linking, there may not be much difference in the resulting size in the Publisher document, though, so that might not be a factor. However, I would guess that standard image file formats will perform better as it takes less work to interpret them for display on the screen.