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sid5E76
New Participant
October 8, 2021
Question

TOC and Cross-reference links are not working in PDF converted using MS Word

  • October 8, 2021
  • 16 replies
  • 49643 views

On my system, TOC and Cross-reference links are working in MS Word. But, when the same document is converted to PDF, these links are not clickable. Suddenly, these links have stopped working in this week. The version of my Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is 21.007.20095.60881. I have tried all the solutions posted at https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/hyperlinks-from-ms-word-not-working-in-pdf/m-p/8797422#M35141 and even tried generating the PDF by reinstalling Acrobat Pro DC, but this issue is not resolved yet. 

 

I would appreciate if someone can provide some insight into this matter.

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    16 replies

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    M
    Manel C.C.
    New Participant
    October 14, 2021

    Here we are having the same problem with all computers it did start recently, we have made it in the past.

     

    The workaround that did work for me is to upload the word document to word online and there save it to PDF.

     

    I don't know if the bug is office related or adobe related.

     

    Adobe reader version 2021.007.20099

    Microsoft® Word 2016 MSO (versão 2109 Build 16. 0. 14430. 20292) 64-bit

     

    D
    default4pfa0lhzzg1t
    New Participant
    October 13, 2021

    Happened to me twice both times they have had to give me a new profile and reimage my computer!!!!!!!!  The work around does not work, I have tried everything and it's good to know it's not something that I am doing. This needs to be fixed right away.  Clients get angry when they can't get their documents.

      D
      defaultejam6eej9w3n
      New Participant
      October 12, 2021

      Our company has the same problem. Reinstalled all software on a PC and now the TOC and cross-reference links do not reproduce when making Word. Down grading Office version is not an option. Don't have a high volume of work so will use Adobe cloud for Acrobat psf production in the interim. 

       

      Please confirm when this issue is resolved.

       

      Thanks,

       

      Charles.

      T
      Adobe Employee
      Tanvi Rastogi
      Adobe Employee
      October 13, 2021

      Thanks for your patience. We have investigated this issue and found that this has broken with a recent Office update and would require a fix from Microsoft. 

      This has also been raised on Microsoft fourms in several threads and acknowledged and it seems they are investigating this issue. Please follow these threads for updates.

       

      https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/cross-references-and-toc-in-word-do-not-work-when/712d50ee-e8dc-4266-9810-bb2d20dcc2c3

       

      https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/when-i-export-a-word-to-pdf-the-table-of-contents/66421104-a501-4b1c-851e-86cd25744e4c

       

      https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/exporting-hyperlinks-to-pdf-from-word/4b792dc6-b045-46f2-88c4-9d94125fbeb8

       

      https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/cross-reference-links-eg-table-of-content-table-of/181567c4-6cfe-4749-923e-452c75ba0c5f

       

      As a workaround, please revert to older version of Office to make links work.

       

      Thanks

      Tanvi

        T
        Adobe Employee
        Tanvi Rastogi
        Adobe Employee
        October 12, 2021

        Thanks for reporting the issue of links not working. We can reproduce this issue with latest Office 365 version 2109 but not with Office 365 version 2108.

        We are investigating it on priority and will try to resolve this at the earliest.

         

        Meanwhile, as a workaround, please downgrade your Office version to 2108 for reverting to correct behavior.

         

        Thanks

        Tanvi

          J
          Jason Woodford
          New Participant
          October 12, 2021

          Unfortunately, that may not necessarily work.  We're experiencing this same issue here at my office.

           

          Adobe version: 21.007.20095.61881

          MS Word version: 2108 Build 14326.20404

           

          We started noticing this last Friday.  Here's another wrinkle into this...we have a Word template we use for some of our document types and, when opening the template and saving as PDF, the TOC links work.  Minor changes to the existing document still update on the TOC and links work when saved as PDF.  Any major changes to the template such as adding/removing sections, changing text, adding information/images (all of which are required for our usage) cause the TOC links to break ONLY IN A PDF.  They still remain functional in Word the entire time.

            T
            Adobe Employee
            Tanvi Rastogi
            Adobe Employee
            October 12, 2021

            Hi

             

            Can you please share a sample Word file where this behavior is reproducible with Office version 2108 as well?

             

            Thanks

            Tanvi

            D
            defaulthnxc0epq1w2o
            New Participant
            October 11, 2021

            Have had the same issue since last week and can't seem to get through to the support chat to troubleshoot either. This is causing major issues for my team. Here's hoping this issues gets some traction soon!

              Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
              Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
              Legend
              October 11, 2021

              @defaulthnxc0epq1w2o   @sid5E76   @Keith_dk 

              Can give more details about what you mean when "these links are not clickable."

              I've made PDFs from my Word documents and the cross refs and TOC hyperlinks are clickable and working as expected.

              Did you update to the quick-fix patch released in early October? It corrected a couple of bugs in the Sept 14th release.

               

              Current version of Acrobat is 21.007.095 and PDF Library 21.7.123 (which you can see in the PDF's File/Properties/ PDF Producer).

               

              |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
                R
                ryano35085349
                New Participant
                October 11, 2021

                Hi Bevi,

                 

                I too have the exact same issue as others in this thread are describing. Acrobat is up-to-date and internal hyperlinks created in Word refuse to work (external yperlinks still work). This is a major problem as several of our customers are waiting on reports which are heavy on internal hyperlinks. Please advise.


                We are having this issue today and found that reverting our Office 365 Enterprise install back to version 16.0.14326.20404 seemed to resolve the issue.  Not sure if this is a Adobe issue or a Microsoft issue at this point

                 

                https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-revert-to-an-earlier-version-of-office-2bd5c457-a917-d57e-35a1-f709e3dda841

                  K
                  Keith_dk
                  Known Participant
                  October 8, 2021

                  I have the same problem - and yes it started this week too.

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