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• • August 10, 2017 at 2:06 am #96663
    San Marco

    Member

    Hello everyone,

    I’m looking for a script or advices to write a script which could to unlink Excel spreadsheets.

    Actually I have created many tables based on linked spreadsheets but I didn’t unlinked them before modifying their content. Now I cannot uncheck the click the unlink option without updating the table first.

    My colleague inadvertently clicked on “update links” when opening the file … Fortunately I was able to retrieve the data from a backup, but I lost several hours to restore everything.

    Thank you !!

  • August 11, 2017 at 2:32 am #96681
    San Marco

    Member

    This is a recurrent problem that I have not yet been able to fix (those tables have been shared, duplicated and modified many times in various catalogues). I hope some kind soul help me to get rid of it! Thank you!!

  • August 11, 2017 at 7:14 am #96701
    Bob Rubey

    Member

    Absolute shot in the dark here…

    With no documents open, have you tried changing your File Handling options in Preferences so that INDD does not check links when opening the document(s)? Perhaps you would be able to unlink the tables then?

    I’m sure you tried as well, but I wasn’t able to locate an existing script.

    Good luck!

    • August 18, 2017 at 2:09 am #96892
      San Marco

      Member

      Hi Bob,

      Thanks for your suggestion but unfortunately it doesn’t change anything, it’s still impossible to unlink the files, I’m only allowed to relink the file or update the links which I want to avoid absolutely.

      Thank you again!

  • August 18, 2017 at 7:09 am #96897
    Bob Rubey

    Member

    San Marco,

    Looks like this one has cropped up before: https://creativepro.com/topic/unlinking-excel-files

    And it looks like a “Catch 22,” INDD won’t let you unlink till you relink or update. Not good at all.

    • August 20, 2017 at 11:56 pm #96933
      San Marco

      Member

      Hi Bob,

      I know this old post which confirms what I was afraid of, it is impossible to solve the problem through the interface. That’s why I’m looking for a script (or the appropriate functions) to un un unlink embedded files.

      Thank you!

  • August 21, 2017 at 4:25 am #96934
    Kai Rübsamen

    Member

    San Marco, I did’nt write here anything, because I tried this last week with the same conclusion as David in the other post: Simply unlink them. But it seems, that there is any kind of unwanted behavior.

    I’m not sure, if this can be solved with any kind of scripting, but you can send me a idml and one linked excel-file and I will have a look at it to forum@ruebiarts.de

    Kai

    • August 21, 2017 at 4:57 am #96937
      San Marco

      Member

      Hi Kai,

      Thank you very much for your proposal, but to avoid further problems I spent my weekend creating the different tables temples and now, it is up to my dear colleagues to copy/past the data into these tables. But anyway I’m still curious to understand what prevents these embedded files from being unlinked.

  • August 21, 2017 at 4:35 am #96935
    San Marco

    Member

    Amazing !!!

    Finally I succeeded to write the hereunder Javascript, which works fine, but with the same result ! It’s impossible to unlink the Excel files without, first, updating the links. But on the other hand, I’m allowed to remove them, which doesn’t really help me… Grrrr

    Maybe someone can tell me what I’m missing here ???

    if (app.documents.length == 0) alert(“No documents are open. Please open a document and try again.”);
    var myLink;
    var linkName;
    var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
    var links = myDoc.links;
    var MyCounter= 0;
    for(var i = 0; i<links.length; i++){
    myLink = links[i];
    linkName = myLink.name;
    if (myLink.status == LinkStatus.LINK_OUT_OF_DATE || myLink.name.substr(linkName.length-5) == ‘.xlsx’){
    MyCounter++;
    alert (“link nb “+MyCounter+”: “+myLink.name);
    //myLink.update();
    //myLink.remove();
    //myLink.unlink();

    }
    }

  • August 21, 2017 at 4:42 am #96936
    Kai Rübsamen

    Member

    Without studying your code, but if it doesn’t work in the UI, it won’t work with scripting too.

    So I would think in another direction: Create new tables, copy the content from a > b and delete a. Of course everything with a script.

    • August 21, 2017 at 5:06 am #96938
      San Marco

      Member

      It makes sense, although I was hoping that the script would have been able to avoid some restrictions and go directly to some functionalities. But it seems that this is not the case. Too bad!

  • August 21, 2017 at 5:18 am #96939
    Kai Rübsamen

    Member

    Yep. But life can be easier, if you e.g. select two frames with identical cells and copy your content from a > b:

    var oldTable = app.selection[0].tables[0].contents;
    app.selection[1].tables[0].contents = oldTable;

  • August 21, 2017 at 6:30 am #96941
    San Marco

    Member

    Waow that’s a real magic trick!!

    Thank you so much !!!

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