New to Hook - what about InDesign?

I am trying out Hook. I have not been able to get it to recognize InDesign files. Just get No linkable item not found in InDesign. I am not trying book files etc, just your ordinary meat-and-potatoes InDesign file. I am using InDesign 15.0.1.

( * InDesign: √ with single document. Its book documents and library are not yet compatible with Hook.)

Help would be appreciated . . .

Frederick

I am using InDesign 15.0.1 and I hook single documents to Omnifocus all the time. I’m not doing anything different to make it work.

Can you tell me more about what you are seeing/not seeing?

Thanks Arthur,

Open a document in InDesign. Press the hot key to launch Hook. The link dialog comes up with the message “No linkable item not found in InDesign.”

If I link to the file in the Finder, the link will be logged in Hook. When opened in InDesgin, that link does not trigger recognition. If I am in other linked items the InDesign document will show up in the list. But since I usually start with the project in InDesign that is a problem.

OK… that’s not how I use Hook, so I had never tried that. When I opened a file in InDesign that I had hooked in the past, when I invoked Hook the dialog popped up asking if I wanted to grant Hook access to InDesign, I clicked Yes and then all my hook links were shown.

So, it appears to be working for me. Did you accidentally say “no” when prompted to grant access?

1 Like

that’s typically the issue. @ FrederickYocum, this is the automation permissions in System preferences

Checked in Security & Privacy/Automation/Hook.app. Adobe InDesign 2020.app is there and ticked.

Would it be helpful to have anymore system details?

Try deleting that permission entry in System Preferences, then relaunch InDesign and Hook, and try again.

Stevelw I am finally looping back on the this. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to remove Hook under Security & Privacy/Automation/Hook.app. I can uncheck InDesign, but there doesn’t seem to be a way of deleting the permission. The permissions survived a uninstall and re-install of Hook.

Sorry for the delay with this. Hook supports linking individual documents of InDesign but not in the context of the entire library of InDesign. If you access an individual document, it should work.

On Link-friendly Mac Apps – Hookmark we say:

  • InDesign: √ with single document. Its book documents and library are not yet compatible with Hook.

also in release notes of Hook version 1.1.2 (2595) is now available - Releases - Hook Productivity Forum

  • Hook also works with Adobe InDesign single-document windows. InDesign book and library windows are not yet supported by Hook.

Sorry that didn’t click in my head when I first looked at this topic. In general the compatible apps page should list limitations, potentially linking to a page or forum post that describes the integration in more detail if special considerations apply.

Thanks Luc, I found those pages in the help documents. They were my first port of call when I was looking for an answer. I am only working with single documents.

Update. Somewhere in the space time continuum since I last posted to this thread links to InDesign documents started working. So, license purchased and looking forward traversing the file system to get to related documents!

2 Likes

Thanks for letting us know, @FrederickYocum. Hopefully the issue won’t return. As long as InDesign responds to its AppleScript call, Hook should be able to interact with it. We will have a look at their forums to see if we can find indication that sometimes it fails and if so, why.

In case this happens again, it seems you need to use Terminal to remove entries[1] (I’m sure there was a minus button in a previous macOS version).


  1. macos - How can I remove Applications from Security & Privacy? - Ask Different ↩︎

1 Like