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Interactive/Clickable Table of Contents..NOT the Bookmarks Bar

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
October 8, 2021
7 replies
31427 views

Hello Adobe Users,

I have a challenge...I have a 100+ page technical user manual that is created in microsoft word. It has a TOC; that in word is clickable so in that it takes you to that section in the document. No matter what I've tried when converting it to a PDF it will NOT retain that behavior. Instead what I get is a side bar with bookmarks. What I want, and swear I've seen before, is the ability of the reader to click the actually table of content section and have adobe reader advance them to that section. Is this even possible anymore in Adobe Acrobat? Or do I need some third party plugin or solution? Thanks

Correct answer Tanvi Rastogi

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

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defaultni72g5zcuxyk

Participant

We have varioiur versions or office/word and all of them have this problem. I have tried all of the work arounds suggested and none fixes the problem for us. It is totally unacceptable and is causing us serious problems with huge reports. Please get this fixed ASAP!

T

Tanvi Rastogi

Adobe Employee

Hi

Please check if this issue happens with Microsoft's Save As -> PDF workflow as well.

If yes, then it is a Microsoft issue and would require a fix from Microsoft. Please raise concerns in the Microsoft forum threads shared above.

If not, then please share a sample Word file exhibiting this issue and the workflow that you are using to create PDF.

Thanks

Tanvi

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Donna32629163htne

Participant

What is the solution to this problem now in 2023? I have no clickable table of contents in Adobe.

Thanks,

Donna

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Tanvi Rastogi

Adobe Employee

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

Tanvi RastogiCorrect answer

Adobe Employee

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

R

RosstarinoAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank You for the update Tanvi; I eagerly await an update. In the meantime, I'll see if our very strignent IT department will allow me alone out of all of our employees roll back to a former version of office 365.

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RosstarinoAuthor

Participating Frequently

I am using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019....can't rollback my office 365 because I'm not using that. So what do I do in that case?

JR Boulay

Community Expert

It is much more pleasant for the end user to have a set of bookmarks always available next to the document rather than having to systematically return to a summary page.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

try67

Community Expert

True, but one does not exclude the other. You can have both bookmarks (easier to use when viewed on a device) and a TOC (easier to use when the file is printed). The latter can even be generated based on the former, including clickable links.

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RosstarinoAuthor

Participating Frequently

I already have the bookmarks, seems that's all I can do anymore when converting a word document to PDF using the Adobe PDF plugin in word. I guess it's not possible anymore to make the actual Table of Contents interactable and clickable. Unfortunate that Adobe thinks users wouldn't be inclined to click the item in the ToC to be taken to that section of the document.

Still no solution to this.

try67

Community Expert

It will not be too difficult to create a script to add such links, if you can't get it to work when converting from Word. If you're interested in hiring a professional to do it for you feel free to contact me privately via [try6767 at gmail.com].

P

Petrick15A9

Participant

Are you using Office 365? If so and you are able to rollback to version 2108 and version 14326.20404 it should work for you. I ran into this this morning when a user reported this issue to me and I tried all the PDFMaker settings and rolled back my 365 build until I found one that this still worked in.

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RosstarinoAuthor

Participating Frequently

on the phone with our IT, trying to rollback to this version; I'll confirm if this worked after my word is updated.

S

Shanaella23880374m548

Participant

Found the solution yet?

You can highlight the text in your table of contents.

A dialogue box will appear - select "Create Link"

Then scroll in your document to the location where you need to insert the link and click there.

Now you can click on your table of contents and the link will take you directly to the associated content.

Bernd Alheit

Community Expert

Read this:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/word-to-pdf-keep-active-links-and-table-of-contents/td-p/9191818

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RosstarinoAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hello Bernd, thank you for pointing that post out. I am already using the PDF Maker plugin in word; I also make sure to the option to retain links is checked. It still does not allow me to export to PDF and have the TOC actually be clickable. What I get is a built out Bookmarks List on the left. That is not what I'm looking for. I think it is not user friendly to have to scroll through bookmarks to find the areas in the TOC that youre looking at to click the bookmark link to be taken to that section of the PDF. The TOC itself should be clickable...that's what I'm trying to accomplish and can't seem to make that work.

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RosstarinoAuthor

Participating Frequently

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