Replace link in many picture frames

[Terentyev Publisher]

I have a problem. In my .afpub file there are 419 picture frames distributed on five pages. All the picture frames are linked to two .jpg files (approx. 60mb each). In the resource manager the files are linked, not embedded.

I want to substitute the jpegs with the original .tiff files (approx. 300mb each) from which those .jpgs were converted. They have the same resolution, dpi, etc.

Affinity does not manage to solve it. The computer runs out of memory. I have 30gb free on HDD plus RAM. Substituting each link manually will be time consuming and will take several days. But even in this case, each move eats a lot of time (my computer is 9 years old) and eats gigabytes of memory.

I tried hiding absolutely all layers, hoping that would help, but it did not.

Is there any way to solve it besides starting the whole project from scratch but with the original tiffs?

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, Terentyev Publisher said:

Affinity does not manage to solve it. The computer runs out of memory

What workflow were you using to try to accomplish this?

[David in Яuislip]

If you select all of the pictures frames on a page, the "Replace image" button will replace them all at once, works for linked or embedded

[lacerto]

If it is a question of having a memory issue at the time of using "Replace image" feature while having the Resource Manager open (either for single or multiple files), using a trick of renaming the original jpgs in the file system, then reopening the Publisher file, and then (when Publisher cannot find the linked files and shows a dialog box warning) choosing "Yes" to relocate the files, but choosing the TIFF files instead of the original JPG files, might be able to avoid the memory issue (as I assume that it technically just replaces filenames rather than tries to allocate memory at the same time, which Resource Manager probably does). Worth a try, anyway.

[Terentyev Publisher]

Just now, lacerto said:

If it is a question of having a memory issue at the time of using "Replace image" feature while having the Resource Manager open (either for single or multiple files), using a trick of renaming the original jpgs in the file system, then reopening the Publisher file, and then (when Publisher cannot find the linked files and shows a dialog box warning) choosing "Yes" to relocate the files, but choosing the TIFF files instead of the original JPG files, might be able to avoid the memory issue (as I assume that it technically just replaces filenames rather than tries to allocate memory at the same time, which Resource Manager probably does). Worth a try, anyway.

That was my first guess, but it did not work. It seems that Publisher loads the substitution file multiple times — for each picture frame.

[Terentyev Publisher]

13 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

If you select all of the pictures frames on a page, the "Replace image" button will replace them all at once, works for linked or embedded

This seems to solve the memory issue, but the constraints are reset and the image is not placed properly. (The image is placed properly when the files are substituted in the resource manager but that’s too time and memory consuming.)

[Terentyev Publisher]

20 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

What workflow were you using to try to accomplish this?

Sorry, I’m not sure I understand what you mean exactly by “this”?

The file is a collection of incarnations of letters from a printed page of text. The image is a high .dpi scan. I created picture frames, they are all linked to one of the two files (the scanner could not scan the whole print area at once, so I split it into two files).

My idea was that if I at first work with compressed jpgs with worse quality, the project would load faster and the workflow would be easier than if I begin with the original tiffs. And I thought to just substitute the files once the project is finished. Obviously, it doesn’t work as I expected.

[Terentyev Publisher]

21 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

If you select all of the pictures frames on a page, the "Replace image" button will replace them all at once, works for linked or embedded

The constraints remain correct if I replace the image when “the image” within a frame is selected. When I select multiple images in multiple frames the option of replacing image disappears. Thus, I would have to replace all 419 images one by one.

But if I select “image frame” (or several of them) and press on “replace image” then the constraints are reset and the substitution appears moved to another area of the page.

[thomaso]

51 minutes ago, Terentyev Publisher said:

In my .afpub file there are 419 picture frames distributed on five pages.

Another workaround: Split the .afpub into five documents with 1 page per .afpub, then try replacing the reduced numbers of images in very single .afpub. If this works, you can combine the 5 documents via menu Document > Add Pages From File… (or, in V2, possibly via the book feature).

[thomaso]

… or reduce the document resolution + Save As the .afpub with a new name, then try replacing the images, then reset the document DPI back to the desired value. My idea is that a massively reduced document resolution would be less demanding for the app to update / create previews for a new image source.

[walt.farrell]

50 minutes ago, Terentyev Publisher said:

Sorry, I’m not sure I understand what you mean exactly by “this”?

How are you replacing the files (detailed steps), as there are multiple ways you could do that?

[Terentyev Publisher]

6 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

How are you replacing the files (detailed steps), as there are multiple ways you could do that?

In the resource manager I highlight the “root” or the “main” name of the image and press “replace.”

[Terentyev Publisher]

33 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Another workaround: Split the .afpub into five documents with 1 page per .afpub, then try replacing the reduced numbers of images in very single .afpub. If this works, you can combine the 5 documents via menu Document > Add Pages From File… (or, in V2, possibly via the book feature).

This partially worked. Publisher very quickly and easily substituted the files on one page without even significantly eating the memory. But to save the file 30gb was not enough and it just stopped responding.

[thomaso]

5 minutes ago, Terentyev Publisher said:

But to save the file 30gb was not enough and it just stopped responding.

Possibly it is worth waiting patiently in this case?

(recently there was a single document uploaded by a forums user who said it would not open. Finally it took up to an hour to open for some other users trying this document and just wait.)

[David in Яuislip]

This shows 228 images in picture frames on one page. All properties are set to 'Scale to minimum fit' - is this what you mean by constraints?
Image is 17kb

Attempting to replace all of them with 46Mb tif caused a crash, likewise if I use Resource Manager
However, replacing 72 frames took 5s, all properties remained at 'Scale to minimum fit'
I did it in stages, after each replacement there is a lot of disk activity so I waited for that to zero otherwise it would crash