Break Picture Links
Break Picture Links is a free XTension from Durrant Software for QuarkXPress 4–7 that removes the location information from every picture in the current document, leaving only the name of the picture file.
This allows QuarkXPress to automatically “find” replacements for those pictures if you give them the same names and place them in the folder containing the QuarkXPress document.
Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.
Hi Jay,
Have you had any experience with the Quark extension Break Picture Links? The developer’s website says it works with Quark 7 and higher, but I can’t get it to work on 8.5 version. We are needing a multi-page document to link to the collected folder, not the original folder from where the images were imported. Any suggestions?
Caroline: according to my database of news in Design Tools Monthly, the last time that XTension was updated was in early 2007. Chances are, it wasn’t updated for version 8. A workaround for you might be this:
Move the folder containing the original picture files. (Unfortunately, you’ll have to do this with all the folders from which you imported pictures.)
Open the Utilities>Usage in QuarkXPress. The picture files should show as “missing”.
Select one of them and click the Update button.
Navigate to the new folder and click OK, or Relink, or whatever it says there. Quark should then ask you if you want to update all the pictures with the ones in that folder.
Done.
Does this help?
Does anyone have a new solution to this. its a feature that i really need.
Moving the folder is all well and good but if there’s images in the drive im moving the main folder to it will keep the links for those images. its such a simple tool and major time saver when collecting the job that should have been integrated many years ago
Chris:
How about Badia’s BigPicture? Here’s a brief description:
BigPicture gives you the most comprehensive solution for managing graphics and picture links. You get instant access to detailed image information, complete picture lists, a unique search and relink engine, plus powerful tools for updating, revealing, opening, renaming, replacing and moving multiple links.
And here’s a link to my full story about it:
http://www.planetquark.com/?p=4640
Chris: I just saw this good news:
“The new trial versions of BigPicture 5 for Adobe InDesign CS5.x/CS6 and QuarkXPress 9 can now be used for unlimited time, although some features are not available until you purchase a subscription or the full version.”
Maybe what you need is there, for free!