In the Gabriel phthalimide synthesis, potassium phthalimide reacts with alkyl halides through an $\mathrm{S_N2}$ mechanism.
Could the same idea work with aryl halides under $\mathrm{S_NAr}$ conditions? For instance, if a nitro group is placed para to a chloro or bromo substituent on benzene, would potassium phthalimide be able to attack and give an N-aryl phthalimide?
One might very well expect this reaction to work (AI does). However I can find no literature examples - maybe someone with Scifinder access can try.
Digging deeper, this paper describes the preparation of the target N-aryl phthalimides by metal-free coupling of potassium phthalimide with unsymmetrical aryl(TMP)iodonium tosylate salts. In the introduction the authors comment on the proposed route saying
The alternative aromatic substitution approach with imide anions (Scheme 1b, right) is hampered by their low nucleophilicity
This suggests that SNAr does not in practice work with potassium phthalimide
