Data merge not working for absolute paths on macOS
With the latest update of 19.4, image paths no longer work for merge documents. I installed the latest update, which went back to 19.3, and have had no issues; therefore, I have isolated the issue with the update. I currently usean Excell file with an image field and the path to the image associated with each record. I have not changed anything in the file but with the new update I get the error message indicating the file is missing.
Salt
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The fix of the issue is now available in the latest InDesign 2024(v19.5.0.084). We recommend you upgrade to the latest version for the fix.
Kindly update the data source file with the POSIX style path in Macintosh to work with data merge functionality smoothly. Please refer to the helpx https://helpx.adobe.com/in/indesign/using/data-merge.html to know more about the difference between HFS and Posix style paths.
You can get the actual POSIX path of a file by right-click it in the Finder while holding Option (or right-click, then press Option) > Copy as pathname menu. This can help you explore the correct POSIX paths to ensure you're using them correctly.
Note: Relative path as such /<foldername>/<filename> is no longer supported after the fix, as it considers the starting “/” as an absolute path. Instead, the recommendation is to omit the starting “/” and use <foldername>/<filename> instead or any of the other existing ways to access the relative path like ./<foldername>/<filename>.
If you are unable to see the update, go to the Creative Cloud application and click on the context menu on the top right, and click on Check for App Updates.
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Adobe InDesign Team
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Colin Flashman
commented
I've created a test file with links and images and test text to try and replicate the fault. Follow the steps in the InDesign file attached.
Put simply, text – whether it is UTF-8 or UTF-16 can import unicode characters that are meant to represent emojis etc, and this is demonstrated in the test file. While not in the minion character set, I've created a GREP style that looks for unicode characters and changes them to apple color emoji. That bit works.
What does NOT work is when importing the text as part of a data merge... instead the unicode characters are completely skipped.