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• • April 14, 2020 at 3:08 am #1238203
    Helen Mulley

    Member

    So, I’m working from home, but with my work PC, fully equipped with up-to-date InCopy.
    My designers are also working from home, with their work Macs.

    I have a whole pile of folders to proof, and it’s all going fine – apart from a random bunch of them are claiming, when I open the .indd file, not to have any stories linked to the file. They DO have stories. I can see the folder. It’s in the right place, and properly named. My designers can see them. I’ve reinstalled InCopy; I’ve restarted my PC multiple times – and the poor designers have reuploaded stories about a million times.

    And I STILL GET THAT ‘no stories available’ message!

    Any ideas?! Anyone?!

  • April 14, 2020 at 9:15 am #1238316
    Anne-Marie Concepcion

    Member

    Helen, where are you storing your InDesign file and the linked InCopy stories?

    These files all need to be stored in one location and users open, edit, and save changes to that same file/location. No uploading/downloading or copying/pasting.

    Are you sharing a Dropbox folder?
    All dialing in via VPN and files are stored on the office server?
    Something else?

    AM

  • April 14, 2020 at 9:28 am #1238346
    Helen Mulley

    Member

    It’s a real conundrum!

    We’re all working from Google Drive, accessing it by Filestream. Most of the folders are functioning just fine – but there are maybe 15 or 20 that absolutely will not work for me in InCopy, even though they do in InDesign. The designers are very familiar with prepping files for InCopy.

    We just tried my designer taking the InDesign file out of the folder onto her desktop; deleting the folder from Drive; then creating a new folder, with links and stories, from scratch – and it STILL doesn’t work.

    I can see the names of the links, and the ‘missing’ question mark.

    :-/

  • April 14, 2020 at 11:06 am #1238356
    Anne-Marie Concepcion

    Member

    Hmm. I am not that familiar with Filestream. Are you? As far as I know, it’s an “on demand” way of syncing files in the cloud (Google Drive servers) with local hard drives. Is that correct? My first thought would be, since Google Drive’s non-Filestream “Back up and Sync” method of keeping local folders synced with other team members is *somewhat fragile* for an InDesign/InCopy workflow, that imposing a new way to sync files w/Filestream is just asking for trouble.

    BUT you’re saying InCopy can open *some* InDesign files and the links to InCopy stories are intact. Is that correct? But for “15 or 20” when you open the INDD in InCopy, it says it has no linked InCopy stories?

    Helen, can you open one of the bad boy InDesign files in InCopy, and go to Window > Links, to see if any links to ICML or images appear? If so, can you hover over one of the links to an ICML file to see the file path? See if that file path matches what your designer sees when she opens the INDD in InDesign on their end.

    If you *don’t* see any ICML files listed in InCopy’s Links panel, but your designer does (for the exact same INDD file … make sure they’re opening it from the same folder), then have them make a change in the InDesign file, something major/easy to spot, but temporary), and save it. Give it a minute, and on your end, open it (or re-open it) to see if you can see the change to the InDesign file.

    This will help troubleshooting.

    AM

  • April 14, 2020 at 11:14 am #1238386
    Anne-Marie Concepcion

    Member

    Researching Google Drive Filestream, I came across this, perhaps it is the key to your problem?

    —–
    Making Files Available Offline
    By default, Google Drive File Stream does not store a copy of your files on your local computer. This means that if you do not have an Internet connection, you will not be able to access these files. In order make your files accessible offline, right-click on a file or folder and select Available Offline under the Drive File Stream menu. Please note that doing so will store a copy on your computer, using up more of your hard drive space.
    —–

    I don’t know how your workflow is set up, but I would strongly recommend that all folders containing InDesign files and their linked InCopy stories be set to “Available Offline” for all users who need to open/edit them. As I said the linking and file locking/unlocking involved in the workflow is rapid and somewhat fragile even when files are physically stored on your own hard drive (as with Back up and Sync, or Dropbox, etc.) and if you’re relying on the service to sync these in the cloud on the fly, that’s asking a bit much, in my opinion. They’re mainly designed for single-file usage like MS Offfice files, not for files with many shared, dependent links like InDesign/InCopy docs.

    AM

  • April 14, 2020 at 11:22 am #1238406
    Helen Mulley

    Member

    Hi – I am so grateful to you for looking at this; but no, that’s not the problem. We’re synching fine – when I was testing this out earlier, I got the designer to make changes to the folders, and they came up for me no trouble. And the amends I’m making on InCopy (where I can!) are synching properly for InDesign.

    My designer has clocked off now (and so should I – it’s 7.20pm here and I’m hungry :)) – but I could indeed see links to ICML, so I’ll check tomorrow whether she and I are seeing the same thing there.

    Also, it occurs to me that I haven’t asked her to amend the design file and then update it… maybe that might work?!

    Thanks so much for your time. I’ll update tomorrow if there’s anything of interest!

    HX

  • April 14, 2020 at 4:50 pm #1238426
    Anne-Marie Concepcion

    Member

    Thank you Helen! I’m curious to see how this is working with Filestreaming. If you wouldn’t mind could you send me screenshots? You can email me directly at amarie@creativepro.com.

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