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oddrun paulineo97236379
oddrun paulineo97236379
Participant
May 24, 2018
Answered

When converting Excel to pdf by PDFMaker: How do you preserve links created by the formula HYPERLINK (not by using the Excel menus)?

  • May 24, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 865 views

I have an Excel file with a column of links created by a Python program as function calls (e.g. =HYPERLINK("http://www.iso.org"; "iso").

When converting this file to pdf using PDFMaker, all the hyperlinks are converted to plain text (e.g. "iso"). (for the record: The PDFMaker setting Add hyperlinks is checked).

However, hyperlinks created using "Insert hyperlink"  from the Excel menu do get preserved in the resulting pdf. From various forums I see that this has been noted as a problem already in 2008....

Any ideas?

Regards,

Oddrun Pauline Ohren

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer oddrun paulineo97236379

I finally found a workaround that works: Saving the Excel file as a "webpage in single file" creates an .mht file. In this all the HYPERLINK formula were converted to "ordinary" hyperlinks. What's more, the .htm file can stll be edited by Excel, Hence, a pdf may be created from the Excel Acrobat band, in which all the hyperlinks are preserved, and without any formatting hassle.

(By contrast, converting the Excel file to an ordinary  web page (.htm/.html file), and converting this by using the pdf converter in Internet Explorer do preserve hyperlinks, but at the same time tend to do bad things to some of the carefully formatted cells in the origin Excel file)

1 reply

oddrun paulineo97236379
oddrun paulineo97236379AuthorCorrect answer
Participant
May 25, 2018

I finally found a workaround that works: Saving the Excel file as a "webpage in single file" creates an .mht file. In this all the HYPERLINK formula were converted to "ordinary" hyperlinks. What's more, the .htm file can stll be edited by Excel, Hence, a pdf may be created from the Excel Acrobat band, in which all the hyperlinks are preserved, and without any formatting hassle.

(By contrast, converting the Excel file to an ordinary  web page (.htm/.html file), and converting this by using the pdf converter in Internet Explorer do preserve hyperlinks, but at the same time tend to do bad things to some of the carefully formatted cells in the origin Excel file)

AnandSri
Community Manager
AnandSriCommunity Manager
Community Manager
May 25, 2018

Hello Oddrunpaulineo,

Thank you for sharing the workaround and fix which will help our user having similar query and issue.

Feel free to update this discussion for any further assistance.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

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