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jonasdr
jonasdr
Inspiring
May 28, 2025
Question

InDesign CC page linking problem

  • May 28, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 223 views

Hi,

For years i am having this issue which drives me crazy. Not sure if this is a bug, or if I am doing it wrong, but it definitely feels like a bug.
In my document i have a number of  titles which have a digit at the end, in superscript, referring to specific technical terms listed at the end of the document. This list is quite long. The setup is that, after exporting the document as an interactive PDF, you can click on the items in that list and that will take you to the page with the referral number.

What i did is create hyperlinks to pages that i have entered manually in the hyperloink window under 'link to page'. So it's not based on anchor points. I just enetered the page number to link to manually
However, after exporting, I keep having a few issues: 
1. Not all links are exported (by the way, this also happens for some website links i have in the document), and if i redo the export, some do work but then others fail.
2. Sometimes it links to a different page thgan to the one I had set up. Going back to the ID document, after i had closed it and reaopened, the page number i had entered indeed changed. Which is weird, as these links atre not based on anchor points and content did not move around after entering the page links.

As this is a long list, it is a horrible job to keep having to check the links. This should be a no-worry-thing.

 

Anyone else having these issues?

2 replies

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
Community Manager
May 28, 2025

Hi @jonasdr,

 

Thanks for bringing this up, and I totally get how frustrating this must be. To dig deeper and help you more effectively, could you please confirm the version of InDesign you're using and your operating system details? Also, does this issue happen with just one file or across multiple documents? It would help to know if you’re exporting to Interactive PDF using the standard Export method or if any presets are involved.

Since the page numbers seem to be shifting after reopening the file, it might also be worth checking if any section markers or layout changes are affecting the numbering. If possible, could you please share a sample file packaged using this method: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/preflighting-files-handoff.html#package_files? 

Let me know what you observe after checking these.

 

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

jonasdr
jonasdrAuthor
Inspiring
June 3, 2025

Hello Abhishek,

Thank you for replying.

 

I am using InDesign CC (2025), and my Apple OS is Sequoia 15.4.1. But this does not really matter, especially as I am having this issue for years already.

 

I also notice that sometimes links just are deleted: after correcting a page hyerlink, I then export the interactive PDF, and the links are there but still faulty sometimes (as described earlier). When I correct the links and then export the interactive PDF again, I see that previously installed links are just gone. Going back to the ID doc, the link has indeed been eliminated from the hyperlink panel all together and thus I have to make a new hyperlink. This obviously should never happen.

 

To answer your other questions:

- This is not a multiple document file, just one. So no linking between docs.

- I export to interactive PDF using the standard, default options

- Since I hyperlinked the page numbers manually in the hyperlink panel, there was no use of section markers or anchor points. Also, I have placed the links after all content was entered, finalised and set, so no shipping of the pages themselves has occurred since.

Attached is a screenshot of how I enter the links in the hyperlink panel.
I can send you a link via email of the packaged file. This is a confidential file so prefer not to share this in a public post 😉

 

I really hope Adobe can resolve these issues within a next update. We should be able to trust the hyperlinking.

If the issue only lies in the principle of manually entering the page links (without the use of anchor points or section markers, like I do), then this option should be either fixed or  eliminated, and we should only be able to link via anchor points or section markers.

Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
Community Manager
June 3, 2025

Hi @jonasdr,

 

Thanks so much for providing all the information. That's super helpful. To take a closer look and work with the team on this, could you please share a short screen recording demonstrating the issue, particularly where the hyperlink goes missing after export?

Also, since the file is confidential, feel free to send me the packaged sample file via DM by clicking on my name and selecting Message. That will help us investigate more accurately and suggest the best way forward.

 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Abhishek 

jonasdr
jonasdrAuthor
Inspiring
May 28, 2025

Btw.. Sorry for some of the typo's in the post.. Was in a hurry 😉

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