Linked images don't display in CS2

[Grfx]

I'm boggled!

I've been using CS2 for nearly a year on both Mac and PC and have never seen this.

On the PC, when I import a graphic file (Ctrl-D), the image box appears but is empty. The file shows up in the linked images, but is not visible. I've set the display preferences to all three settings (fast, typical and high quality) so that's not it.

The original image is a pdf generated from Publisher. I thought that might be the problem, so I opened the pdf in Illustrator and saved it as an .ai file with the same result.

I then deleted the InDesign preference file. That seemed to work for one image, but when I tried the next, the same thing happened. It doesn't work with existing files that have worked previously either.

I was able to import the Publisher pdf into InDesign on the Mac, but that version is very old; InDesign 2.0 then I opened the file on the PC and the images were there but needed to be updated. When I hit update, the images disappeared again.

Any suggestions?

 

[grafixenter]

Are you sure about the display preferences?

Have you tried Overprint preview? View Menu>Overprint Preview.

If you fail to see anything, then there could be a problem with the file extension. Save the 'image' as an IMAGE (tiff, jpeg, psd etc)

 

[jmgalvin]

You didn't say exactly what the missing pic looks like in indd. if it's a gray box and you have display settings set to anything better than "optimized", something is fouled up in the indd display settings - probably requiring a reinstall.

One thing to try as a test - since the images show up in your "links" window.

Go to File menu/package and create a package that will contain a new "links" folder. Then see if the the pics show up. If yes, something was wrong with the file mapping in the problem file. If no, and it happens with more than just the pdf from Publisher (which could contain all sorts of screwed up postscript), you probably have a serious problem.

If it's just the publisher pdf you might do best to recreate that page or pages.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[Grfx]

Thank you for the suggestions, I was able to save the pdf from Photoshop and it worked fine. There must be something screwy with the Publisher pdf file. (Imagine that!)

In answer to your questions:
Grafixenter:
Yes, I'm positive about the display prefs. That was my first thought.
Overprint preview has no effect.
File extensions are all correct.

jmgalvin:
The box acts like it's filled with white. It knocks out everything under it. But there is no stoke or fill. I even tried the direct selection arrow thinking the image was defaulting to a white fill. Nope. When the box is deleted, the image under it doesn't regenerate. This is the point that I have to delete prefs. It acts like a memory problem, but we added a gig of ram about two months ago and have had no problems since.

Packaging the file wasn't something I considered. Interesting idea; didn't work.
I don't have access to the original files (embedded) so recreating the page isn't an option.

One other thing I thought of and tried. I considered a possible font conflict so opened the pdf in Illustrator and converted the fonts to outline, saved the file as .ai and tried to import that into ID. Same result. It must have something to do with one of the embedded images, because Photoshop worked.

I have had no problems today. (so far)

FYI, I'm using Windows XP on an HP Pavilion and the Mac is a G4 with OSX 10.4.8.