Editing / Updating Linked .AFPUB files

[Greg N]

Affinity Publisher can link and embed other .AFPUB files, which is great! It allows us to create a collector publication to preserve the functionality of Serif BookPlus, which we relied heavily upon.

However, there is an inconsistency in the way Resource Manager searches for updates and makes changes to linked files.

1. It is possible to double-click on a frame linked to an .AFPUB and edit the source file.
2. It is possible to save the master document (the one with the linked frame) with the changes to the linked file
3. The changes do not show up in the linked file (e.g., it isn't modified)
4. Since the linked file isn't modified, the Update button in the Resource Manager is deactivated and the link can't be reverted to the state of the linked file
5. The only way to trigger activation of the Update button in Resource Manager is to open the linked file directly, and make a change (so it seems that Resource Manager just queries the file's last changed time to determine if it has been changed).
6. There is no way to force an update of a linked file through Resource Manager.

In summary, there should either be no way to edit linked .AFPUBs within the master document or a consistent way to save the source file and manually update when needed.

The workaround is to trigger a save on the source file so that you can activate the Update button and refresh the links.

Also, Resource Manager allows both linked and embedded versions of the same file - with the same name - which can get confusing, especially if there are multiple placements of the same named file (which is required, for example, when placing multiple pages of a source file - in itself a great feature for us in our technical publications!)

Best,
Greg

 

[Chris_K]

HI Greg N

Thanks for raising this. Linked files aren't fully linked shall we say at the moment but there s more work being done in this area. I'm not sure exactly how it will be designed to work when editing placed files within the master document but it is certainly a test case that will be raised for the new bejaviour

Cheers