Please note that for the desktop folder, etc, the colon path is different - it needs your hard drive name in it. So, for your USB drive, the colon path should be: 'USB_External:Archives:2s:204983:Links:204983 SS Pkt Tees.tif'. The colon path starts with the name of the drive and then directory names with sepeators. Generally speaking they are quite similar. InDesign wants the colon path in the Spreadsheet according to the documentation, but appears to be giving you the unix path, and maybe that sometimes works. On a Mac, there are (at least) 2 kinds of paths: the colon path and the unix (slashes) path. What's the exact path you are using in the spreadsheet? Wow, I'm a little bit late to the party, but it looks to me like we're missing some information here. This obviously won't be good for me if I can't get Data Merge to work by pulling images from various folders. I tried saving the text file and the ID file in the same folder as the links folder, but the only thing that worked was to have the links all out in the same level as the ID and text, rather than being in a links folder. I tried swapping out the colons, but no joy. I also noticed that in the help files, the PC example used the backslashes as separators, and the Mac example used colons. Volumes/Shared Folder/ClientFolder/AdDate//Links/204983 SS Pkt Tees.tif On a removable USB drive, a few folders in: Users/carol/Desktop/Links/204983 SS Pkt Tees.tif Here is what the paths look like when copied from the links manager: I'm using an iMac with 10.6.6, and I haven't tried on the other iMacs that run 10.5.8. So, at this point, the only problem is that the path that I copy from the links manager returns an error when the images are on the USB drive, while the same method works if the image is on the HD. The hope is to pick SKUs from a database, assemble them by page into tab-delimited text files, and use Data Merge to bring each ad into a text frame, with any associated product image or logos. I'm looking to introduce Data Merge into the mix so that we can get a whole page's worth of ads from a data sheet, rather than looking up each ad by SKU and copy/pasting from the archive. Images are located in 11 folders, depending on the SKU of the product in the ad. It is from the archives that the images for this job (a 12-24 page ad sheet that publishes every two weeks) will be taken. It would probably make sense to always have the USB drive hooked up to the same machine, but it would be more flexible if it could be carried to any machine, should the main one be tied up by something else. There is a PC server, but for some reason, they use an external USB drive for archiving. All machines are supposed to go up to 10.6 at some point, but I'm not the administrator, so I can only ask for any software updating-I can't do it myself. The office has several workstations-all Macs with some form of 10.5, but one (the one I use) that has some form of 10.6 (sorry that I can't be more specific now, but I'm at home). Links/Images/Product_JPGs/.Sorry to have confused you. /Users//Desktop/House Account Postcard/Links/Images/Product_JPGs/.jpg.For a Mac, is there a specific path required? I've seen all sorts of opinions on these and none of them work for me.Is there a specific file extension that is required?If so, what is it? I've done both PSD and JPGs.Despite reading articles and forums as well as watching many videos, nothing seems to be working. Please note that I am saving this spreadsheet as a CSV file format and everything is currently on my desktop (not a server). The rows have the paths which I have tried every which way from Sunday to make work but continue to get the same error (missing image files). Column header is to avoid Excel thinking I want to use a formula. I have an Excel spreadsheet sheet with all my columns and rows together and the content is working completely fine but the images is where I am having issues. Currently, I am designing a postcard with variable data which is both content and images. Hey folks! I'm using InDesign v2024 on a Macbook Pro.

Data merge images indesign