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How do I collect my linked images in Affinity Publisher?


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A while back, while working on a document, AP asked me if I wanted to make all my images "linked" and collect them into one folder.

I said yes, and it did it automatically.

 

Now I am trying to find that function/command and Im not seeing it.

My document has new linked images from all over my hard drive and I want them to be all consolidated to one folder.

I have already checked out the Document Resources panel. Doesn't seem to offer that function.

I could swear the AP did this for me on its own. ( I have the folder to prove it.) But I can not seem to replicated this behavior.

Was I dreaming? Or does this function exist?

 

Please advise.

Thanks.

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-12-28 at 6.34.51 PM.png

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I've never seen a function in Publisher that would collect them. They simply become linked to their original locations, in my experience.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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4 minutes ago, thomasbricker said:

Can I tell AP to export all to a folder?

Not that I have seen.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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@thomasbricker

Yes, you can make all embedded images to linked in a batch.

Just select multiple images in the resource manager, click "Make linked..." and select a folder.
It will mass export all resources into that.

I just tested it with an PDF export.

It obviously does only work if the image has no linked image reference.

You also did that with an PDF export. I can tell that from the naming of your resource files.

Very nice function. Love it.

---

On a site note: I see that you have quite a lot linked images in your document. At the current state of the beta you should be careful with that and consider to rasterize the parts you're done with. I also had a lot of images linked in my document and got Publisher crashing all the time until I rasterized most of it to reduce memory usage. Just a hint if you notice problems.

Edited by Steps
found out how it works

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

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Hi Steps,

 

im a bit confused.

Are you saying I CAN get AP to collect and batch collect all images to one folder?

And do I need to first embed them all and then select them all and tell AP to link them all and drive to a desired folder and put them there?

i would love it if that is the case. This is what I am trying to do.

This is essentially a “Collect for Output” function, which really should exist.

We used to have to rely on third party apps to get Illustrator to do this.

Then they built it into InDesign. 

This is obviously a desireable function.

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The function works when you have embedded images that you want to make linked.

If you have linked images then yes, you'd need to make them embedded first. That's an interesting trick, which I had not thought of (and have not yet tried).

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 hour ago, thomasbricker said:

Hi Steps,

 

im a bit confused.

Are you saying I CAN get AP to collect and batch collect all images to one folder?

And do I need to first embed them all and then select them all and tell AP to link them all and drive to a desired folder and put them there?

i would love it if that is the case. This is what I am trying to do.

"Make linked" will only as for a Output folder IF (and only IF) there is no link reference for that image.

Normally the link is to the original file that you dragged in. Changing from embedded to linked will not ask you because of this.

BUT if you do a PDF export and import that PDF all images are embedded. And since the link information is discarded by this you will be asked for a output folder. You can do it in a batch.

Consider this so be a workaround to get all images out of your document into a folder.

It's not perfect since they get converted to a TIF if the color space of the image and document did not match.

1 hour ago, thomasbricker said:

This is essentially a “Collect for Output” function, which really should exist.

We used to have to rely on third party apps to get Illustrator to do this.

Then they built it into InDesign. 

This is obviously a desireable function.

No, I don't see this. That is really a workaround for something else you want to achieve. I think there is a direct way to get what you want without the need for detours.

I looked how other software manages this and I find you can solve all that "relative path" & "collect for output" / "pack and go" stuff rather easy by just doing this:

 

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

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@thomasbricker

I played around with that a bit and figured out another way:

Just make everything embedded, delete the original files, make it linked again.

You will be asked to choose a folder for the missing links.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

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55 minutes ago, Steps said:

I played around with that a bit and figured out another way:

Just make everything embedded, delete the original files, make it linked again.

You will be asked to choose a folder for the missing links.

Until such time as Serif makes images actually linked and not use a fully-embedded copy, why bother?

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29 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Until such time as Serif makes images actually linked and not use a fully-embedded copy, why bother?

In my case I wanted to achieve what the OP asked: Collecting all actually used images in one folder.

I needed that because I had to do a batch rework on them outside of Publisher.

But it's also useful to do that "pack & go" what some people want (and where I see no need in).

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

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  • 2 months later...

+1

Collecting all the linked (or embedded) files into a folder is really important for sharing of files. I appreciate that embedded files is a way around this but if we are talking many hundreds of MBs of images, it can become unwieldy to have all saved within a single file.

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1 hour ago, mswift said:

Hopefully this will be built into AP before it comes out of BETA.
Collecting all placed images and fonts for sharing and archiving, essential for me at least.

The funny thing is the tool mostly seems to exist, just there is no way to invoke it in the interface. 

When opening a large PDF yesterday I had a pop up asking if I wanted to make the images linked because it was a big file. I said yes and it prompted me for a folder location for saving the images. 

I think we just need a menu option to make this happen at will and we’ll be away.

then add fonts etc and it will pretty much do what is wanted. Ideally you could also get it to save a duplicate AP file as well for effective archiving. 

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  • 7 months later...

I have all my images on various locations on a cloud space ( pcloud in this case) to be sure I have everything neatly in one folder, I would like to easily collect it from within AP.

 

The trick I learned from the above posts is the following:  

  1.  embed all images if not allready so ( I have the settings so that they will be embedded as standard.)
  2.  logout from cloud storage, (or simply disconnect internet )
  3. in resource manager select all files that are embedded
  4. select make linked
  5. a popup will appear where you can choose a location ( it would be very convenient if this simple functionallity was available allways; not only when the original locations are unaccessible....)
  6. choose a folder to store the files, if needed, create a new folder, for instance on a removable drive usb stick or on your local drive.
  7. All files will be copied to this location.
  8. reconnect to cloud to embed more assets.

A pity it is not possible for fonts....

I think that if Serif really wants to be any sort of competition for InDesign this functionallity is a Must! Otherwise the battle is lost even before it starts.
( Obviously this goes for ANY feature in InDesign...)

If for instance I work on a project and want to give if to a collegue, It would be next to impossible if I do not want them to work on my computer. I should be able to hand them the complete package to work further on their own computer, without missing any asset at all.

 

Edited by vjbasil
updated the content
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  • 4 months later...
On 11/1/2019 at 4:01 AM, fde101 said:

A more direct implementation of this capability was added to 1.8 which is now in beta.

I have just installed Publisher 1.8.2 (which presumably is NOT a beta version)... I cannot see how to collect all linked files in a document into a single folder. Does anyone know how to do this?

Also, I have created a test document and placed some files into it - a couple of vector files (.ai) and a Photoshop file but I can't see any way of knowing if these are linked or embedded. How do I do this.

The ability (or rather inability) to link (not just embed) files and collect them for archival or distribution purposes is the biggest reason I haven't switched from InDesign to Publisher. I'm dying to tell Adobe where they can stick their monthly subscription fee!

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7 minutes ago, davidg2020 said:

I have just installed Publisher 1.8.2 (which presumably is NOT a beta version)... I cannot see how to collect all linked files in a document into a single folder. Does anyone know how to do this?

WooHoo... I found it. For the benefit of those following along I went to "Document>Resource Manager" and there was a "Collect" button at the bottom of the panel.

This is a bit of a breakthrough for me... I'm now a big step closer towards making the switch from InDesign to Publisher.

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2 minutes ago, davidg2020 said:

WooHoo... I found it. For the benefit of those following along I went to "Document>Resource Manager" and there was a "Collect" button at the bottom of the panel.

This is a bit of a breakthrough for me... I'm now a big step closer towards making the switch from InDesign to Publisher.

There is one stumbling block... as alluded to earlier in this thread (or maybe I read it elsewhere) of an "asset" is placed multiple times in one Publisher document it collects multiple instances of that asset in the "collect" folder (and you do have to manually create a new folder - Publisher doesn't automatically create a folder in your destination, but that's not a deal-breaker).

I realise you can manually select the assets to collect (and thereby exclude multiple instances) in the resource manager but this is painstaking for large documents with lots of placed images.

Am I missing something? If not, I hope Affinity fine tune this so it only collects one instance of each asset (without me having to exclude the other instances manually). This would make life so much simpler.

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  • 4 months later...

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