Losing links when saving Word 2011 Mac to Acrobat Pro X 10.1.3

[chrisr38361145]

I've searched online for an answer, but can't find anything.  I jus started noticing that when I save a Word doc (2011 for Mac) to a PDF, the links in my document no longer work in the PDF.

Any ideas why this is happening and how to fix it?

[kamla66]

Phillip Jones, you are brilliant! I tried your instructions here:

1. Another way to create a PDF that with Hot links is create the word Document and save as Docx.
2. Next locate file and drag and drop on icon of Acrobat in Dock.
3. Wait long enough to drink a cup of coffee or tea.
4. When Acrobat opens and  the PDF shows save PDF immediately.

I didn't have time for coffee. It opens immediately. It saved all the links in the body text. But not in the footnotes. Any clue?

(In my situation I cannot import the word docx into pages and back because of format changes.) 

I wish I had joined this forum last year.

[kamla66]

Phillip Jones' idea of drag/drop onto the Acrobat icon in the dock really works.

Interestingly, doing that provides no option to save pdf as high quality, press, standard, or smallest.

It saves automatically as a high quality, indicated only as a large file size.

During the SAVE process I do have the option of different formats: PDF/A, PDF/E, PDF/O, PDF/X. The PDF/A and PDF/E both make the exact same size as the drag/drop result. PDF/X makes a somewhat larger file than the others, not noticably different. PDF/O makes a much smaller size, not good enough for printing.

Phillip, are you still involved with this forum?

Does anyone have any suggestions of how to have control over quality/file size choices?

[Dynamic_experience98A6]

After hunting around for a while, I figured out a relatively straightforward fix here, assuming you have a Google account.

1) Upload the .doc or .docx file to Google Drive. Open the document.

2) At the top of the screen you should see a small "v" symbol. Click on that and Lumin PDF Viewer should be an option.

3) Open the document using the PDF viewer. This will convert it from .doc to .pdf.

4) Download the file as a .pdf. The links should be intact.

[byebyenight]

uploaded the original file (doc or docx) to Google Drive. Right click on the file and open with Google Drive Viewer. Then Click on the Print icon on the top, you'll see a popup window (you can choose to cancel) and a new tab. In the new tab, click on the save icon in the right bottom corner.

[Guest]

I'm trying to convert a Word for Mac 2011 (v14.4.8) document to PDF on a MacBook Pro running 10.6.8. It's my 250-page dissertation and is the first time I've cared about preserving active links from a Table of Contents or cross-references. I've purchased & used Adobe Acrobat Pro since on PC and Mac since 2004 (currently I use Acrobat Pro v9.5.5), and discovering this limitation now is so disappointing. How can Adobe, Microsoft, and Mac still not learn to play nice !?!

Anyway, I tried the Google Drive workarounds but Lumin PDF Viewer fails because of my large document size. I also tried importing my Word document to Open Office and converting to PDF from there - didn't work, links weren't active. I don't have Pages, so I haven't tried that solution from Phillip Jones. I tried opening my Word document on an old PC I have that runs Microsoft Word 2003 and Acrobat Pro 7.0, but the Word formatting got all messed up when going that far back within Word.

My only remaining idea is to go find a PC running a more current version of Word, open it there, and convert to PDF on the PC. Anyone tried that?

What a pain ...

[lydiatheys]

I have been having the same problem and it is driving me crazy. The older version of Pages will preserve links, but I cannot get it to open my docx files (quite large) reliably. I lose all sorts of formatting. Same with the Google Drive solution, although I appreciate the suggestion. I have been using a product from Iskysoft for editing PDFs and it works but it is a real pain to have to do the links there after all the changes have been made in word. And then the client wants a change, and I have to make it in Word and redo all the links.

This is not to mention that I am using text on most pages in large text boxes, and Word messes that up big time to begin with--can't find things, etc--so this is just another layer of crazy on top of an already kind of crazy pie!

Good luck and if you find a nice solution, please post! I am thinking of cranking up an older Mac Mini and running Windows in a partition so I can use a Windows copy of Word to finish files and put in links. It just should not be this way!

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

Link creation is now available in Acrobat Pro DC.

You need to have Office 2011 and then install Acrobat Pro DC.

There are many ways of getting the links created. To list a few :

1. Open the file in Word > File > Save as Adobe PDF.

or

2. Drag and drop on Acrobat icon in dock.

or

3. Acrobat > File > Create > PDF from file > Browse and Select the Word file.

To Download Acrobat DC, you can download free trial @ Download Adobe Acrobat free trial | Acrobat Pro DC

Thanks

Tanvi

[kamla66]

Thank you for your response Tanvi,

Each of the three suggestions result in the same file. Yes, they each retain embedded links. (Although links in footnotes are not retained.)

But MISSING from the Mac Adobe Acrobat: Unable to choose file size: High Quality, Press, Standard, Smallest - important choices that we always had in PC and MAC.

This new Mac Acrobat gives no choice. It automatically produces a VERY LARGE pdf. The size is even larger than the Word docx size.

The only way to get a smaller file size is to choose Optimize, which is even smaller than the original smallest. No choice in between.

I have a 14 page report in word docx, filled with many high quality professional photos. The docx size is 23.3 MB.

In the original pdf, high quality becomes 6.2 MB, Press becomes 3.8 MB, Standard becomes 974 KB, Smallest becomes 768 KB.

In this new pdf, it automatically becomes 27.9 MB. In Optimize it becomes 685 KB.

In the publishing world, these are not practical sizes to work with.

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

Thanks for reporting. This is a known limitation and we are working on it.

As a workaround, all these features are available in Acrobat Pro for Windows.

Regards,

Tanvi

[titaniumtroop]

Is there any timeframe for when the links will embed in footnotes?

[icfm]

Tanvi,

I have just installed Acrobat DC under OS X 10.10.3 with Microsoft Word 14.5.1.

The File menu entry in Word, 'Save as Adobe PDF...' does not work. When clicked, nothing happens.

Then, when I close the document, I get an alert that says 'Word could not fire event'.

Update: additionally, the option to 'Save as Adobe PDF' in the lower left of the Print dialogue creates a PDF. However, it doesn't contain hyperlinks and has no bookmarks for text formatted as headings!

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

Can you please tell if there is any custom installation of Office ? Were the VBA components of Office installed ?

Thanks

Tanvi

[TanviRastogi]

The Save As Adobe PDF option in Print dialog for Word 2011 has a different workflow.

Currently link creation is supported from Word > File > Save As Adobe PDF or from within Acrobat.

Thanks

Tanvi

[kkkg65758696]

I had the same experience with icfm using Acrobat DC. If I wait long enough then I get this error:

Adobe Acrobat DC could not open 'myfilename' because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded). To create an Adobe PDF document, go to the source application. Then choose Save as Adobe PDF from the PDF dropdown in the Print dialog.

I went to the print dialog and there I could save it as pdf even by specifying the file quality but the links were gone again.

As a result,

1. How come such a big company fails to fix such a small problem for years? What kind of people work there?

2. How come you push me to buy Acrobat DC to 'fix' a bug in the version I bought?

I can write more but it is not gonna change anything, there is no one listening.

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

Can you please tell us if you have made any partitions of your hard disk ? Multiple OS versions installed?

Thanks

Tanvi

[kkkg65758696]

There is only one partition with only OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.

The only solution I found is opening the pdf in Acrobat pro and manually entering the links one by one...

[icfm]

‌Hi Tanvi

I responded to your post by email but have just realised that my responses showed up as blank!

To answer your question: I have installed only Word (no other Office apps), and IIRC did not install VBA when installing Office.

Can you confirm that if I add VBA to the office installation, then install Acrobat DC, the "save as Adobe PDF" menu item in the file menu will work?

thanks

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

Yes. VBA components in Office installation are a prerequisite for "Save As Adobe PDF" to work.

Thanks

Tanvi

[icfm]

Hi Tanvi

Ok I reinstalled Office with the VBA components, followed by Acrobat Pro DC.

There's good news and bad news.

The good news is that 'Save as Adobe PDF' File Menu command does indeed produce a PDF with functional hyperlinks, including in the table of contents.

The bad news is that headings in Word don't get converted into headings in the PDF file, so that if I open the PDF in OS X Preview, the Table of Contents sidebar has nothing in it. Likewise the Bookmarks navigation pane in Acrobat itself is empty.

Contrastingly, if I convert the same Word document to PDF using a free website (which I won't name here), headings in Word do appear as clickable entries in the Table of Contents sidebar when viewing the PDF in OS X Preview, or in the Bookmarks navigation pane in Acrobat.

This is a pretty significant limitation; is there any way to get the Word headings to populate the Table of Contents/Bookmarks panes when converting to PDF?

[icfm]

Hi Tanvi

headings in Word don't get converted into headings in the PDF file, so that if I open the PDF in OS X Preview, the Table of Contents sidebar has nothing in it. Likewise the Bookmarks navigation pane in Acrobat itself is empty.

May I ask if there has been - or is likely to be - any progress on this particular point?

Thanks

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

Word Headings to bookmarks in PDF is currently not supported in PDFMaker for Word. We have taken your feedback and given to engineering team.

Thanks,

Tanvi

[icfm]

Ok thanks.

I'm going to uninstall Acrobat DC for now because I really only needed it for this purpose.

Unfortunately I've been unable to uninstall it, and have started a separate thread about that here.

[Stricker1]

Tanvi,

Thank you for taking the time to suggest methods of creating PDF from Word doc while retaining links. This is still one of the most tedious and frustrating situations in content marketing today. Creating useful e-books and whitepapers should not require so much manual work.

Not one of the three suggested methods maintains the links after processing...

1. Open the file in Word > File > Save as Adobe PDF. - links blue and underlined but inert

nor

2. Drag and drop on Acrobat icon in dock. - error messages, "cannot find file", "cannot use file" then keeps gauge open on desktop as if it is still processing... waited 10 minutes... had to Force Quit to remove it.

nor

3. Acrobat > File > Create > PDF from file > Browse and Select the Word file. - results in error message, can't process file.

Using Word 15.12.3 and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on Apple MacBook Pro mid-2010 with Mac OSX Yosemite 10.10.3

Architecture: x86_64

Build: 15.8.20082.147029

AGM: 4.30.58

CoolType: 5.14.5

JP2K: 1.2.2.34668

Looking forward to a timely and long-overdue feature parity with Windows.

[TanviRastogi]

Hi Stricker1

Link creation is currently supported with Acrobat DC and Office 2011 only. What I understand that you are using Office 2016.

Please try with Office 2011.

Thanks

Tanvi

[Guest]

Try Dropbox.

After the Google Drive options failed for me (too much formatting lost) I had a look to see whether Dropbox offered any similar options and saw that they now have integration with Word Online (that one passed me by). After uploading and opening my Word docx in Dropbox (via browser) I was able then to open with Word Online and export as PDF. All links were included and no formatting was (obviously) lost.

Presumably OneDrive, or any other way to access Word Online, will offer the same.

Hope this helps someone.

Yosemite, Acrobat 8 (!), Word 2011