adobe illustrator - InDesign CC: Relinking an .ai-file with multiple pages

The image shows a text-box with linked artboards from a multi-page AI-File.

The file is structured like this: Green-White-Bars.ai

• Artboard-1


• Artboard-2


• Artboard-3

In my 2nd document, I just want the bars to be red and white. I prepared a file.

Red-White-Bars.ai

• Artboard-1



• Artboard-2


• Artboard-3

Now I just want to replace Green-White-Bars.ai by Red-White-Bars.ai. The problem: If I replace it, inDesign loses the page-numbers. If I select import options and choose the right page, it asks me to enter the right page for every single link.

Is there any trick to do it in a batch? Both documents are almost the same, just the colors of the objects are different.

I found a 5 year old thread about this without a proper solution, but I hoped Adobe may have changed it within 5 years?

Answer

What I typically do is leave the actual Illustrator file name the same as the original. If you need to circumvent the OS not allowing duplicate file names, then merely place the duplicate in a subdirectory.

So if you have.....

"MyDocument.indd" linked to "mypages.ai" with 15 artbaords:

Copy "mypages.ai" to a subdirectory. Make certain the .ai file name is still "mypages.ai".

Then edit the duplicate .ai file. be certain to not remove artboards. You can add new ones, you merely can't decrease the number of artboards.

When you go back to InDesign, use the Links Panel and highlight the top link:

And relink it (I merely use the relink icon at the bottom of the panel). All subsequent artboard links for that same file should update.

This only works if the ai file has the same file name and a minimum of the same amount of artboards.

_{CS6 screen shot because well.... I don't like CC as much as I like CS6.
Then there's the whole "subscribe or never access your files again" thing.
It's not impossible that there are improvements using the CC2018 environment.}