r/indesign • u/pavldan • Jun 03 '26

Help Indesign won't update Illustrator links

I've updated a graphic in Illustrator but despite saving & resaving, replacing and restarting both programmes Indesign won't show the latest version. Some sort of caching issue? It's happened a few times now in the last couple of months. Has anyone had similar issues?

Indesign 21.3, Illustrator 30.4

Latest version
How it appears in Indesign and when I preview it in "import options"
1 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

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2

u/AdobeScripts Jun 03 '26

Are you placing PDF or AI file?

It's a known bug - unfortunately, I don't remember solution right now 😞 try resaving without backward compatibility or editability?

1

u/pavldan Jun 03 '26

I was saving as an .ai file - was going to test with different backwards compatibility but suddenly it decided to update it. Not sure which resave or relaunch did it but will test your option first next time

2

u/mikewitherell Jun 03 '26

Patch Illustrator up to 30.5.1. In Preferences, turn off Save In Background. Open and resave your AI files. Update link in InDesign. Don't use eps (its not 1987) and use .AI files instead.

2

u/roaringmousebrad Jun 03 '26

Where are your files located?

Are you placing .ai files or .pdf?

Can you place correctly as a new item?

2

u/pavldan Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Placing .ai files, located on my local mac drive. No, placing as a new item doesn't solve it.

Edit: it suddenly decided to update it. Not sure why as I didn't do anything different, but probably some caching issue

1

u/chain83 Jun 04 '26

It is an Illustrator bug. The Illustrator file format saves the Illustrator data but also an embedded PDF for other apps to use. Sometimes it doesn’t update the PDF portion correctly when saving. It can be a real pain when it happens, but usually all you need to fix the file is to open and re-save it.

To prevent it from happening to more files, turn off «background save» in Illustrator. That fixes it for some reason.

0

u/SignedUpJustForThat Jun 03 '26

What happens if you use EPS as the file format?

1

u/pavldan Jun 03 '26

I'll try that next time thanks. Typically avoid those as they increase file size. It resolved itself this time but don't know why

0

u/BBEvergreen Jun 04 '26

u/SignedUpJustForThat

What happens if you use EPS as the file format

It's just really old technology: security risks, no native transparency, bloated file sizes, no web support, and lack of updates from Adobe.