Tech Info 096: AFP 3.1 short names in an OPI workflow

HELIOS Tech Info #096

Fri, 10 Feb 2006

AFP 3.1 short names in an OPI workflow

EtherShare UB does support file and folder names with up to 255 characters. Such paths are also handled by ImageServer UB. Some applications running on Mac OS X (e.g. Quark XPress 6.5, Adobe Indesign CS, and Adobe InDesign CS2) are not fully compatible with long file names so that they generate OPI comments with a short name syntax.
There are two ways to overcome this problem:
  1. Use ImageServer with TIFF layout images
    Enable TIFF layouts e.g. via the "%t" folder syntax (see ImageServer UB manual chapter 5.3 for details)
     
  2. Limit file and folder names to 31 characters
    Names up to 31 characters work with Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X clients, as well using Quark XPress, Adobe Indesign CS, and CS2.

Technical background information example:

An image with the Mac OS X client path “HELIOS-Demo/OPI-LongNames/This-is-a-folder-with-a-really-long-name-which-may-lead-to-a-short-name-usage%t/This-is-a-really-long-file-name-renee-TIFF.tif” was placed.
The resulting OPI comments are:
InDesign CS and InDesign CS2:
%ALDImageFileName: HELIOS demo@turtle:OPI-LongNames:This-is-a-folder-with-a-#9B7F6D:This-is-a-really-long-file-name-renee-TIFF.tif
XPress 6.5:
%ALDImageFileName: HELIOS demo@turtle:OPI-LongNames:This-is-a-folder-with-a-#9B7F6D:This-is-a-really-lon#9B7FAA.tif
These paths are invalid image paths, and so ImageServer cannot resolve them. Therefore hires images (when the OPI option “Resolve All” is used) and EPS layout images are not replaced.
If TIFF layout images are placed, it does work because there is an additional OPI comment included, which allow image replacement. 

OPI comments EPS vs. TIFF (an Example from Quark XPress 6.5): 

The OPI comment from a placed EPSF layout image (only the wrong path information is available):
%ALDImageFileName: HELIOS demo@turtle:OPI-LongNames:This-is-a-folder-with-a-#9B7F6D:layouts:This-is-a-really-lon#9B7FD6.eps
The OPI comment from a placed TIFF layout image (there is an additional OPI comment which does allow OPI resolving):
%ALDImageFileName: HELIOS demo@turtle:OPI-LongNames:This-is-a-folder-with-a-#9B7F95:layouts:This-is-a-really-lon#9B7FC8.tif
%ALDImageID: 43ec55c2.00002e92.00000001.009b7faa.turtle{unix,native,8BIM,TIFF,3.0}/Volumes/PlatteII/demovol/OPI-LongNames/This-is-a-folder-with-a-really-long-name-which-may-lead-to-a-short-name-usage%t/This-is-a-really-long-file-name-renee-TIFF.tif