Working on Files with lots of links on multiple computers

[B***@adobeforums.com]

I'm trying to figure out whether I can start working at home a couple of days a week on a laptop. I do newspaper layout, working on five 40 page indesign documents that each have lots of links. I envision getting a laptop and maybe an external hard drive that I bring back and forth with me to work. Then, I reasoned, I would work off of indesign files and links that live on that hard drive. Is there a way to update all my links to reference the new external hard drive or do I need to "relink" each individual link? Or, is there a better way to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish?

Thanks for any ideas.

[unknown]

What kind of work are you doing with these files? You may not need the
links at all. When you bring the file back to work, just copy it over
the old one and the links should be fine.

If you're only working on text, you might want to look at InCopy.

Bob

[K***@adobeforums.com]

If you keep the Indesign file in the same folder as the links (or
hierarchically "above" the linked folders) it doesn't matter what drive
letter the links are found in. IOW, if the ID file is

k:\document1\document1.indd

and it links to a file called "picture1.tif"

k:\document1\links\picture1.tif

you can take your external drive home, where it might be recognized as
drive letter m, and ID is smart enough to look for picture1.tif in

m:\document1\links\picture1.tif

If you can't keep your ID file on the external drive, or if you can't
keep it hierarchically above the links, this would still work seamlessly
if you make sure that both computers see the external drive as the same
drive letter, preferably something deep down the alphabet, like x.

[K***@adobeforums.com]

I do exactly that using the Windows Briefcase utility to maintain synchronisation with my whole document file structure,
and as Ken Benson says, all the relative links are maintained.

k