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HeatherA_54
Known Participant
October 9, 2021
Question

Table of Contents no longer working

  • October 9, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 9147 views

Help please - yesterday whilst working in MS Word my screen went black and then a message popped up saying there was something wrong with Adobe Acrobat and then it disappeared. However now when I convert a word doc to PDF the Table of Contents is no longer able to be selected. This is happening with any word doc that I have previously converted with no problems but if I re PDF that same doc the ToC is no longer active.

The side navigation panel works okay in the newly converted PDF but not the ToC which was created in my original word doc.

I have unstalled / re installed Acrobat - I have a full subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.

thanks

Heather

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    K
    kellyloomis
    Participant
    January 17, 2023

    Is anyone else still experiencing this issue (or recently started)?  My company upgraded to Microsoft 365 (version 2205) and the working TOC in Word does not work in pdf format.  I never had this issue prior to the upgrade and I am unable to fix it or determine the cause.

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Legend
    January 17, 2023

    You don't mention which version of Acrobat you're on, but if you upgrade your copy of MS Word/Office, then also upgrade Acrobat, too. This will force the latest version of PDF Maker to be updated as well.

     

    Here's where you can  check your version against the official releases from Microsoft and Adobe:

     

    FYI, our shop hasn't had any problems exporting PDFs from the latest version of Word 365 with Adobe PDF Maker. (As of January 2023)

     

    |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
    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

    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

    Dave Creamer of IDEAS
    Community Expert
    Dave Creamer of IDEASCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 13, 2021

    If one disables the Acrobat PDFMaker add-on, restarts, and makes a PDF strictly with Microsoft's Save As PDF (or XPS) option, the TOC still does not work. One can reasonably assume that the issue is Microsoft's, not Adobe's. 

    David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
      M
      MichaelJacquin
      Participant
      October 11, 2021

      Hi HeatherA,

       

      I am experiencing the same issue as you are in that when I save a Word 365 document with a large table of contents (TOC) as a PDF while ensuring that Create Bookmarks is set to use Headings (as I normally do), the TOC entries in the generated PDF file are no longer clickable; instead, clicking on a TOC entry in the newly generated PDF file just now shows that the text is being selected while in the recent past, clicking on a TOC entry in the PDF file would take a user straight to the relevant section in the PDF document. The TOC properties in my Word document have not changed in that 

       

      To assist, here's some details about my computer:

      - Windows 10 21H1 x64 with 16GB RAM

      - Word 365 v2109 Build 16.0.14430.20224

      - Adobe Acrobat Reader DC v2018.011.20036

       

      And here's the list of changes that have been applied to my computer in the last 7 days:

      - KB4023057

       

      I too have attemped to repair the Adobe Acrobat Reader installation but in vain. I have not attempted to uninstall KB4023057 (ie, as it is against our IT policy) and have not attempted to uninstall/reinstall Office 365. As I am the only one who updated the technical Word document in the last week, I know exactly what changes I have done (ie, I have only added content spanning 2 pages for 1 new section and have not amended any TOC settings, options and configuration settings whatsoever).

       

      Please let me know if there is anything you'd like me to test/change.

       

      Thank you in advance.

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

      @MichaelJacquin @HeatherA_54 @Dave Creamer of IDEAS 

       

      This is a bug in the latest versions of Word 365 and Acrobat/PDF Maker.

      It affects all internal hyperlinks (TOC, cross-refs, etc.):

      • Word 365 version 2109 14430.20270
      • Adobe Acrobat 2021.007.0095 and
      • Adobe PDF Maker 21 (Library 21.7.123)

       

      See discussion at this forum post:

      https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/links-from-ms-word-not-working/m-p/12444694#M3331...

       

      And up-vote this bug at UserVoice,

      https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44270718-errors-...

       

      Word-around:

      Bypass Adobe's PDF utility entirely and instead use Microsoft's built-in PDF exporter:

      File / Save As / file type = PDF  (Make sure that's not Save As Adobe PDF, which has the bug).

       

      Follow the instructions, don't forget to choose the options for tagged accessible PDF.

      |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
      Dave Creamer of IDEAS
      Community Expert
      Dave Creamer of IDEASCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 9, 2021

      What happens if you do a Save-As PDF rather than using Acrobat?

       

      Also, did you use the Help > Repair Installation option in Acrobat?

      David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
        H
        HeatherA_54Author
        Known Participant
        October 10, 2021

        thank you for your reply - yes i have tried both 😞

        Only thing i haven't done is reinstall MS word (on Windows)

          H
          HeatherA_54Author
          Known Participant
          October 10, 2021

          Everything was working perfectly until the black screen episode and then the message re acrobat which disappeared before I had a chance to properly read it.


          I use both word and acrobat many times per day creating large technical manuals

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