Why is my Quark picture usage utility suddenly showing all files as "modified"?

When clocks are changed at the beginning and end of Daylight Saving Time in the United States, the potential for Missing and Modified pictures is increased. This article, which comes from a Quark TechNote, explains how and why this occurs, as well as what you can do to correct—or even prevent—the situation.

When QuarkXPress opens or prints a document, it examines the location of imported picture files (TIFFs and EPSs) to determine if they are still linked, and it looks at the date and time stamps on the files to determine if the pictures have been modified since they were imported. The status of an imported picture will appear as "modified" in the Picture Usage dialog box (Utilities menu > Usage > Pictures tab) if you alter the date and time stamp on the file by making a change to the picture in your image-editing program and resaving it.

If you store your pictures on a machine other than the one you are working on, the pictures may appear as "modified" if the system clocks of the two machines are not synchronized. This occurs most often when some—but not all—networked machines are updated in connection with Daylight Saving Time. Your pictures may also show as "modified" if your network or server software alters the date and time of stored files during the course of automatic clock adjustments, as in the case of Windows NT.

When Windows NT makes its automatic adjustment for Daylight Saving Time, it changes the File Modified time stamp of every file by one hour to match the new clock setting. Even though the files have not been modified, QuarkXPress detects this change, and reports the graphics as being modified in the Usage > Pictures dialog.

To avoid this problem, make certain all users and servers keep their date and time synchronized in both Macintosh and Windows control panels. In some cases, such as with Novell server software, synchronization must be precise to the second.

For Windows NT servers, uncheck "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" on the time zone tab of the clock dialog and make the adjustment to the system clock manually. Unmodified graphics will then be listed with a status of OK in Usage > Pictures.

Tip: Some networking software can be configured to update both servers and local workstation computers automatically. If your software does not accomplish the time synchronization automatically, there are many shareware applications or extensions available that will do so.

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