The directory separator cannot be used in file names… but things are still messy there. Here’s a brief overview of why this is (or was) such a mess (although that page also uses a nonexistent (Mac HD)/Documents as its example, which should more realistically have been (Mac HD)/Users/sambrown/Documents).Īlso note the difference between using a colon and a slash as the directory separator: the colon was standard in Mac OS the slash is standard in Unix. There is, however, a difference between the traditional Mac OS and Unix-based file systems to take into account as well. (When you’re logged in, ~/ is a shortcut way of writing /Users/sambrown/.) The photos folder (which-at least in macOS Sierra-is actually called Pictures) is located in your user folder, i.e., it’s /Users/sambrown/Pictures, assuming your username is sambrown. That’s not how OS X/macOS structures things. Now, first of all, it should be said that the very first example given in the Adobe documentation is quite simply stupid: Mac HD:Photos:BillTucker.jpg will never work out of the box, because there is no Photos folder directly in the folder that represents your Mac’s boot drive unless you’ve added one yourself. Instead I’ve always used relative paths or absolute ones-the latter just needs the right syntax to work. I have never noticed before that certain ways of writing the file path actually do work if the InDesign file is in ~/Documents because I never put anything there. The file paths given in the documentation are indeed a bit misleading in my experience, too. but like I said above, that format only seems to work when the data source is in ~/Documents, not a subdirectory. Users/sambrown/Documents/Games/VL/assets/icons/state.png Using the full file path copied from the Links panel for the image also works: It seems like this format should work:ĭocuments:Games:VL:assets:icons:state.png My goal is to be able to write the file path in such a way that no matter where the csv file is located, the image can be found. csv file's directory with the image in it. csv file (for the second example), or in the final example, if there is an 'images' directory off the.

csv file is in the same directory as the image (for the first example), the directory below the. Using relative paths always seems to work. If the csv file is in a subdirectory of 'Documents', InDesign fails to find the image files.

csv file of merged data was located in the 'Documents' directory. However, after much experimentation, I've only succeeded in loading images with their paths written out this way when the. I'm attempting to use the data merge feature of Adobe InDesign, but I'm finding that it's far more persnickety about the file paths for merged images than the documentation suggests.Īccording to the documentation, I should just be able to write the file paths of merged images as strings like: stuff I've tried that 'should have' worked but didn't: Var thisState = '~/Documents/PageNumbers/pageNumber-' + myVariable + '.When using Data Merge to put pictures into an InDesign document, how do the file paths need to be written in the data source file? The official documentation appears to be incorrect.

If (myTextFrames.label != myLabel) continue MyTextFrames = ().getElements(myLabel).slice(0), Not sure.Īny advice you have would be helpful. Apparently, I'm not succeeding in looping through pages. When I run it, there are a couple alerts that show I've created the right variables) But instead of placing pageNumber-p1.ai on page one and pageNumber-p2 on the second page, whichever page I'm 'focused' upon gets its graphic placed twice on page 1. (I created a zip file containing these elements, in case it would be helpful to see what I'm testing)( ) I've set-up a document that contains identical structures, including a text box labeled 'pageNumber' to hold a variable based on the page number, an empty rectangle to receive an illustrator file, and a text box filled with placeholder text.Įventually, I'll be using data-merge to create a much longer document, comprised of identically structured pages, but containing personalized data.

Data merge images indesign