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A
Andrew Welker
Participating Frequently
March 1, 2025
Question

How do I adjust a PDF's internal hyperlinks/interactive annotations so it can reflow in Acrobat?

  • March 1, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 1326 views

I'm working on a big digital book with lots of internal hyperlinks for convenient navigation (in addition to bookmarks), and a bunch of tagging so it's friendly to text-to-speech softwares and assistive technologies. I'd like to have just one file with all these features at once: internal hyperlinks and navigation buttons, accessible tags, and reflowable (specifically in Acrobat and not just other programs). But when I try to reflow my prototype PDF in Acrobat, it says I can't because "interactive annotations" (the hyperlinks and buttons, notated as interactive annotations in Acrobat's Content panel) can't be reflowed. So I'm looking for a workaround.

 

Here's my ideas right now for how I might be able to do this. Any thoughts?

  • Give up.
  • Find a way to make it that when you try to reflow the PDF in Acrobat, the interactive annotations are effectively "disabled" or "shut off," so they don't do anything while in reflow mode and thus don't mess with the reflow system.
  • Find a way to keep the links and buttons still working in normal display mode, but without the "interactive annotation" status, so Acrobat doesn't care if they're there or not while reflowing. This may mean that the links still work (or try to work) while the document is reflowed, and I don't know how that would work if the user follows a link to a text anchor (as opposed to a specific page) or a button to go to whatever page they last visited.
  • Maybe there's something to do with the Reference and Link tags that can provide functional internal hyperlinks and buttons, but without making them "interactive annotations"?

 

If you even have minimal insight on how to make this work, I'd appreciate it. I really like that Acrobat has a reflow view option and would really like to introduce it to readers who would appreciate it, but don't yet know it (or things like it) exist.

1 reply

N
Nolen_Alian9409
New Participant
March 1, 2025

You'll need to ensure the hyperlinks and annotations are set to adjust dynamically with reflow. In Acrobat, using the "Edit PDF" tool can help reposition links, but for full reflow support, structuring the document properly with tags in "Accessibility" settings is key. Similar to optimizing interactive elements in web design, a well-structured PDF improves usability across different views.

 

[Spam removed]

    A
    Andrew WelkerAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    March 1, 2025

    Fantastic, thank you! It sounds like there's a way to do keep the functional links AND annotation status AND be reflow compliant AND have proper tags! Right now I think I can do funtional links + annotation status + proper tags, OR I can do reflow compliance + proper tags, but not all 4 at once. I'm just unsure where to go in InDesign (where I'm preparing this, pre-export) or Acrobat to fix this, like you say should be possible. What is it in specific you think I could do to set the hyperlinks, buttons, and annotations to adjust dynamically with reflow? Like, what buttons do I press or what tags to I assign them?

     

    Note: the links I'm currently working with are stationed in parent pages. In case that matters.

     

    Here's the options I see from the Prepare for Accessibility tool.

     

    When I'm in the Content panel, I see them on each page under Annotations.

     

    In the Order panel, I only see them if I've overridden the parent page elements for that particular page.

    In the Tags panel, I also only see them if I've overridden the parent page elements for that particular page.

    A
    Andrew WelkerAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    March 1, 2025

    UPDATE: Okay I'm not sure yet WHY it works, only that it is. But I did some fiddling and I've gotten a FUNCTIONAL link actually working in an exported PDF that reflows!!! Nolen, even if you can't see or respond to this before I figure it all out, thank you SO much for giving me a little more hope that this might be doable. It appears to have sent me in a really promising direction. 🙂

     

    Here's what I did:

    1. I saved a copy of the actual prototype file and did all of this on that copy.
    2. I removed the parent page links.
    3. I experimented with Type > Hyperlinks & Cross-References > Insert Cross Reference.
    4. In the "New Cross-Reference" menu that opened up, I clicked the place I wanted to set a hyperlink destination: the title of the Table of Contents.
    5.  Clicking the little Pencil icon in the menu's "Cross-Reference Format" section, I opened another menu and invented a non-default format referred the reader to "chapter [chapNum for the destination text anchor]".
    6. I used that custom reference format.
    7. I exported the PDF to see if it worked.

     

    Next steps for experiments:

    • Does it work because the text anchor hyperlink comes from the New Cross-Reference menu, instead of the Hyperlinks panel?
    • Does it still work if I tag it as an Artifact?
    • Does it still work if I put it as a de facto footer on the Parent Pages, without overrides?
    • Does it still work if it's on the Parent Pages, but I override those elements on all pages?
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