• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Hyperlinks not working when using AdobePDFMakerForOffice with VBA

Community Beginner ,
Jun 07, 2021 Jun 07, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I have an Excel application that was working perfectly a couple of years ago and no longer does.  Presumably because of changes made by Adobe.

The application creates a PDF with internal hyperlinks.  It is based on this code here: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/7adab38e-29f9-4363-9b50-c64612e4fd35/macro-for-pdfmak...
but using Excel, rather than Word.
For a number of years, it worked, producing pdfs with active hyperlinks.  It has not been used for a year due to covid restrictions changing business practises.  It is now required again and does not work.  The hyperlinks are now dead.
Is there a way to roll back to an older version of Acrobat or an updated way of generating PDFs from VBA macros?
All methods tested to date, result in dead hyperlinks.  Manually clicking through menus does generate the required results, so the functionality still exists.  I just don't know how to access it via VBA.

TOPICS
Create PDFs , General troubleshooting , How to

Views

1.3K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 2 Correct answers

Community Expert , Jun 11, 2021 Jun 11, 2021

For versions with a perpetual license, you can find the download links on your "Products" page in your Adobe account: https://account.adobe.com/products

Unfortunately, for subscription versions, Adobe does not make the older versions available for a direct download - or at least they are not easy to find, and what worked last year, may no longer work today.

You may want to poke around this site to see if a direct download link for your desired version of Acrobat is available: https://prodesigntools.com/creative-cloud-2020-direct-download-links.html

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Community Beginner , Jun 20, 2021 Jun 20, 2021

Turns out that I've been cursing the wrong multi-national for their continual updates that break long-standing functionality that small customers depend on.  It wasn't Adobe, but Microsoft that broke my application.

 

I didn't notice that the test system where an old version of Acrobat worked was also using an old version of Office.  But, as I worked my way back through older versions of Acrobat on an up-to-date Office I still couldn't find anything that worked until I twigged to the fact that my

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Community Expert ,
Jun 08, 2021 Jun 08, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I looked at the code in the referenced article, and it looks like you are using non-published APIs. Adobe never released information about how to automate PDFMaker, and therefore can change how this works at any time without any need to let us know that they did change it. It looks like that's what happened, and ended up killing your solution. 

 

Do you have a subscription to Acrobat, or are you using a perpetual license? 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 09, 2021 Jun 09, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It's a subscription.  Tried downloading a pirate version of Acrobat XI and got my application working again.  I'd like to think there is a legitmate way of doing this.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 11, 2021 Jun 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

For versions with a perpetual license, you can find the download links on your "Products" page in your Adobe account: https://account.adobe.com/products

Unfortunately, for subscription versions, Adobe does not make the older versions available for a direct download - or at least they are not easy to find, and what worked last year, may no longer work today.

You may want to poke around this site to see if a direct download link for your desired version of Acrobat is available: https://prodesigntools.com/creative-cloud-2020-direct-download-links.html

It migh tbe hidden behind a Creative Cloud version (e.g. here: https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2019-direct-download-links.html - scroll down to find Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2019).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 13, 2021 Jun 13, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks a lot.  Looks like that is the way to go.  Still haven't found a version that works, but I'll keep working my way back.

I wonder what was so important to change, even if it meant breaking functionality that had existed for years.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jun 14, 2021 Jun 14, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Just to be clear, Adobe did not break anything that they promised would work. You are using a private, unpublished and undocumented API that Adobe does not want you to use - otherwise they would have published the specs as they've done with a number of other APIs. What you are using was designed to be an internal API just for Acrobat's own internal functionality. I would strongly advice against using such unpublished APIs, because they can and do change without notice - as you've just experienced. 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 19, 2021 Jun 19, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Would be more than happy to use a more official, documented, means.  But have absolutely no idea what that would be.  Have searched long and hard and this is the only solution that I found to create PDFs via Acrobat with VBA.  And Acrobat is the only tool I have found that is capable of producing working hyperlinks.  

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 20, 2021 Jun 20, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

Turns out that I've been cursing the wrong multi-national for their continual updates that break long-standing functionality that small customers depend on.  It wasn't Adobe, but Microsoft that broke my application.

 

I didn't notice that the test system where an old version of Acrobat worked was also using an old version of Office.  But, as I worked my way back through older versions of Acrobat on an up-to-date Office I still couldn't find anything that worked until I twigged to the fact that my test had used an out of date Office.  So I started again, rolling back Office this time.

For anyone else who might run into this problem and stumble on this thread, I have found Office 16.0.12130.20344 to be the last version that produces working hyperlinks when using AdobePDFMakerForOffice through VBA.  At least with Acrobat 2021.005.20048.

Newer versions still produce working hyperlinks when produced manually through the menu, so presumably there is still a means of automating it.  But I am yet to figure that out.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines