Table of contents
Adobe Link is a native plugin for Adobe tools powered by LinkrUI, that enables direct searching, opening, placing, and syncing of assets stored in Frontify from within Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and After Effects.
Getting Started
To get licenses for Adobe Link please follow the installation process you find in this help article.
Brand selection
To navigate to the brand of your choice in your brand instance, navigate to the footer of the Adobe Link window. Here you will click the brand's button as shown in the green box in the Adobe Link panel’s image below.
Library selection
After you have selected your brand, you can pick the library you would like to browse from the views dropdown list. See the gray rectangle above. Click the list to switch to a specific library.
Adobe Link asset view options
There are two options to view your assets, thumbnail and list view. The view buttons are located at the bottom right side of the panel.
Only assets that are supported by the application running Adobe Link are displayed in the Adobe Link panel. If a specific file type is supported by Frontify but not supported by the application running Adobe Link, it is filtered out from Adobe Link. For example, Indd file types are not supported by Ai, Ps, Pr, and Ae applications (neither open nor place), and therefore you will not see them. Adobe Link filters them out.
Grid view
By default, Adobe Link displays assets in grid view, creating a visually intuitive approach to content discovery. On the thumbnail, you can see an asset preview, asset name, and asset status (icon). Hovering over the asset's thumbnail displays the file type and offers an actions menu button.
List view
List view optimizes space and consolidates important asset information - including small previews, names, file types & status icons - at a glance.
Details view
The asset details view displays an additional view section with the details of an asset. The “View Asset Details” button is located at the bottom right of the panel and is available in both, grid and list view. To open and close the Details section, click the view asset details button.
Collections
The collection dropdown list is located at the top left of the Adobe Link panel.
By default, “All” is selected. To select a specific collection, click the list to open and select the collection you want. These collections are specific to the Frontify library that is currently selected.
Note: You cannot search inside a collection.
Search
Adobe Link search allows you to search your assets based on a search term.
When you enter a search term, Adobe Link sends the search request to Frontify and retrieves the library search results back to Adobe Link.
You can search:
Titles
Filenames
Tags (even part of tags)
Description
Metadata
Filter
You can narrow down your selection of assets and filter for the asset you need.
Click the filter button at the top right side of the Adobe Link panel to filter assets.
Filter Types:
File types (.png, .jpg, .ai, etc)
Tags (Coming Soon)
Metadata (Coming Soon)
Upload new assets
Adobe Link allows you to upload new assets from your local file system directly into Frontify. To upload a file, click the document icon on the bottom of the panel as seen below.
Click upload then you will see the screen as shown below.
If you want Adobe Link to sync your files to Frontify, check the 'Move file to LinkrUI folder.' Adobe Link will manage your files and ensure that they are synced to Frontify. To properly manage the file, it needs to be in the LinkrUI folder. Your original file will not be deleted.
On the "Upload new asset" page, you can:
Give the file a different name from the original file name;
Add a description;
Specify the destination folder in which uploading the assets.
When all fields are set, click the upload button.
View Upload Progress
Immediately after clicking the upload button, the upload progress page is displayed, which shows the tracking progress of all your current assets that are being uploaded. It includes a progress bar indicator - that shows the upload progress for each asset - a cancel and a close button.
When the upload completes, the upload progress screen is cleared and the user is redirected to the assets screen.
You can close the uploads window to continue working with Adobe Link while uploading the assets. To track the upload progress, click on the “hamburger” icon ≡ on the upper right side and select the uploads option.
Asset status icons in the Adobe Link panel
Below are the status icons and symbols that appear for assets in the Adobe Link panel and their meanings.
Icons | Meaning |
 | Cloud: A white cloud icon means your asset is in the Frontify cloud only. |
 | Local: A white circle with a black checkmark means your asset is local. When you open or place an asset from Frontify to Adobe Link, a version of it is copied to the local device. When the download is completed, the asset icon changes from ‘Cloud’ to ‘Local’. |
 | Problematic A white cloud icon with a black exclamation mark means that a problem was detected when you tried to open or place the asset due to permissions issues or asset corruption. |
| Conflict: A solid red triangle with a white exclamation mark means your local asset has a conflict.
Local assets can be in “Conflict” status when:
Note: Upon hovering over the Conflict icon, a tooltip pops up, explaining the specific reason for the conflict. |
| In progress A spinning blue circle means that your asset is in the process of opening, placing, updating, resetting, or purging (depending on the action selected). |
Adobe Link Asset Action Menu List
The following are Adobe Link actions that you can perform on Frontify assets:
Open
Place
Update
Purge
Reset
Open
The open option allows you to open assets that are in Frontify directly into Adobe applications. The open action downloads a copy of the Frontify version to the local device.
When the download completes, the asset status changes from 'Cloud' to 'Local'.
Note: The open option is available in the asset action menu list only if it’s supported by the application running Adobe Link.
Place
The place option allows you to place Frontify assets directly into Adobe applications. The place action downloads a copy of the Frontify version to the local device.
When the download completes, the asset icon changes from ‘Cloud’ to ‘Local’.
Update
The update option allows you to update and sync your local asset changes into Frontify. When you save your local changes, the icon for the asset in the Adobe Link panel change from ‘Local’ to ‘Conflict’, and an Update option becomes available in the asset action menu list.
Note: The Update option becomes available in the asset actions menu list only after saving local changes.
Purge
The purge option removes the local asset copy from the local device and makes the asset ‘Cloud-only.’ It does not affect your assets saved to Frontify.
Note: The purge option is available in the asset actions menu list only for assets stored locally.
Reset
The reset option deletes the local asset copy from the local device and re-downloads the current asset version from Frontify.
Note: The reset option is available in the asset actions menu list only for assets with a ‘Conflict’ status.
Preferences
Adobe Link allows you to set and change some default Adobe Link settings in the Preferences window.
To open preferences, click on the “hamburger” icon ≡ in the upper right and select the preferences option from the drop-down list menu as shown below.
The preferences window includes the following:
Thumbnail size
Search
Local asset cache purge interval
Local asset cache folder
Link updates
Thumbnail size
By default, the Adobe Link thumbnail's asset size is 120. You can change the default size of asset thumbnails by dragging the slider.
Search
All searches are global regardless of if context-sensitive is selected. However, context-sensitive searches will be coming soon.
Context-sensitive (coming soon)
Searching by context-sensitive means the search results are from the selected folder and subfolders. When you select a folder and search with 'Context-sensitive' selected, it only returns results from that folder and subfolders.
Global
Searching by global means searching within the currently selected library or collection. When you are in a folder and 'Global' is selected, the search will return everything in the library or collection, even in the folder 'above' the selected folder.
Local asset cache purge interval
By default, Adobe Link 'local asset cache purge interval' is set to 'Never'. So no active data removal from the cache. However, Adobe Link allows you to change to a predetermined cache expiry time, by choosing one of the following options:
After a day
After a week
After a month
Never
Note: Purging assets removes the local copy of your asset. It does not affect your assets saved to Frontify.
Local Asset Cache Folder
By default, Adobe Link's local asset cache folder is stored at:
C:\Users\<user-name>\Documents
You can pick a different location for the Adobe Link cache folder by clicking the 'Choose' button as shown below.
In addition, Adobe Link allows you to force clear the asset cache folder.
When clicking the 'Clear Cache' button, the assets cached resources are immediately removed from your local device.
Note: Clear cache only clears away assets that aren't open (in any app). In case there are open assets, the below dialog opens with the list of assets that weren't cleared.
Adobe Link updates
Adobe Link enables bi-directional syncing between Frontify and InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Premier Pro.
By default, link updates are set to auto-update. You can change the default setting to one of the following options
Prompt
Do nothing
Auto update
Prompt
The 'Prompt' option triggers a link update message when a placed asset gets updated in Frontify (see below). You can decide if you want to override your local copy with the Frontify copy or stay with your local version.
"<fileName> was updated. Do you want to relink to the new version?"
Do nothing
The 'Do Nothing' option, leaves the placed asset as is although the placed asset was updated in Frontify.
Auto update
The 'Auto Update' option allows an open or placed asset to automatically be updated if the asset is changed in Frontify without notifying the user.
Smart-Linkr
The Adobe Links 'Links' dialog is a powerful feature that allows you to review and manage all of the placed links, both local (on disk) files, and Frontify assets, in your Adobe documents*. The Adobe Link 'Links Dialog' enables you to re-link, upload, and update local links to Frontify and vice-versa.
The Relink button is located at the bottom left of the panel. To open the Adobe Link 'Links Dialog' click the 'Links' button as shown below.
*Currently the Adobe Link 'Links' feature is not supported in Photoshop.
'Need Attention' links
Adobe Link gives you a short summary of the status of any links that need attention as badges on the link button. If your document has links that need attention, a badge will appear over the link button.
If you hover your cursor over the badge icons, a tooltip pops up displaying how many links are missing locally and from Frontify.
The pink badge on the right shows the number of links missing from Frontify.
The red badge on the left shows the number of links missing from your local device.
The above image shows 2 local links missing and 1 Frontify link missing.
Link dialog overview
All files placed in a document are listed in the Adobe Link 'Links Dialog'. These include both local files (on disk) and Frontify assets.
Download links (toggle)
With the download links toggle, you can choose whether to download links or not. This toggle is also available in the preferences dialog.Link status icons
The icon next to each link indicates the status of the link
For more information on link statuses, refer to the table in the ‘Links’ status icons in the Adobe Link 'Links Dialog' section below.Link name and location in the document
Clicking on a link in the links dialog automatically takes you to that image within the document. The page number appears in brackets ().
Link path
Hovering over a link in the links dialog provides a tooltip of the full file path.
Link action buttons
Actions that can be performed on a link (the actions vary depending on the status of the link).
See 'Adobe Link 'Link Actions'' below for individual link action descriptions.
Upload all
Apply all actions.
See Adobe Link 'Link Actions' below to apply all link action descriptions.
Adobe Link 'Link Actions'
The following are Adobe Links 'Links Dialog' actions that can be performed on links:
On individual link:
Upload:
To link a local link file to Frontify, select the local link in the 'Links Dialog', and click the 'Upload' button. In the upload dialog select 'Upload' to upload the link. After the local link is uploaded, Adobe Link automatically relinks the link with the Frontify asset within your Adobe document and the status of the link becomes ‘Cloud’.
Note: The 'Upload' button is available only for links with the status ‘Local’.
Relink to Frontify:
Relink to Frontify option enables you to relink any link in the Adobe Link 'Link Dialog' to a Frontify asset. To relink a link to Frontify, click the 'Relink to Cloud' button. If Adobe Link finds results in Frontify that correspond to the link’s name, it shows the results in a dialog with the best guess of the assets to relink to.
To Approve the selection, click the ‘Approve’ button. If the asset you expect is not included in the dialog search results, use the search in the panel button to search for other assets. When you find the desired asset select 'Place' from the asset actions menu list. Now the link is replaced by the selected asset and relinked.
If Adobe Link doesn’t find any Frontify assets that correspond to the link’s name, the message ‘No Results Were Found’ is displayed.
Relink to local
Replace a link with a different source local file. To relink a link to a local file, select the link in the links dialog, and click the ‘Relink to Local’ button. In the dialog box that appears, locate and double-click the new source file.
Unembed
To unembed a linked file, click the 'Unembed' button.
On all links:
Upload all
To link multiple local links to Frontify, click the ‘Upload All’ button at the top right of the ‘Links Dialog’. In the upload dialog that appears, select ‘Upload’.
All local links are uploaded to Frontify. After the local links are uploaded, Adobe Link automatically relinks the links with the Frontify assets within your InDesign document, and the status of the links becomes ‘Cloud.’
All of your uploaded files are now relinked with Frontify.
Relink all to Frontify
To link multiple links to Frontify, click the button at the top right of the ‘Links Dialog’.
To approve/cancel all, click the ‘Approve All’/’Cancel All’ button at the top right of the ‘Links Dialog’.
Relink all to local
To relink all links to local, click the ‘Relink All to Local’ button at the top right of the ‘Links Dialog’.
In the dialog box that appears, select a folder where you want Adobe Link to search for links.
If the targeted selected folder contains the corresponding file name, Adobe Link will replace the links.Sync all
Limitations
Multiple links selection is not supported.
Illustrator: Missing links are indicated in the Adobe Link dialog as ‘Unknown’ instead of the name of the link.
Links status icons in the Adobe Link 'Links Dialog'
Below is a table that describes the link status icons and their meanings.
A linked file can appear in the Adobe Link 'Links Dialog' in any of the following ways:
Link Status Icons | Meaning |
| Valid and Cloud: This icon means the file is linked to a Frontify asset and is available locally. |
| Valid and Local: This icon means that the file is linked to a local file and is not in Frontify. |
| Missing but in Cloud: This icon means that the file is a Frontify asset, which exists in the cloud, but is missing from the local device. (The image exists in Frontify but is locally missing) |
| Conflict: Links are in ‘Conflict’ status when:
Note: With hovering over the ‘Conflict’ icon, a tooltip pops up giving the reason for the conflict. |
| Embedded: This icon means the link is embedded. |
| Modified: This icon means that the version of the file on disk is more recent than the version in your document. This may happen, for example, if you import a Photoshop graphic into InDesign, and then you or someone else edits and saves the original graphic in Photoshop. |
Troubleshooting
Error Placing Asset
Problem:
You receive the error:
Solution:
This is caused by an asset having download protection applied in Frontify. An admin will need to remove download protection on the asset or you need to request access to the asset in Frontify itself and download it from there (rather than through the integration):
Find the asset in the corresponding Frontify library in the browser.
Click on the asset.
Click 'Request Download' and complete the request form.