Jump Back command

[marshallm10075190]

Is there a way to use the Jump Back hyper-command in an end-product PDF? This command works fine within FM, but does not function on the resulting PDF.

[K.Daube]

IMHO this is not needed in pdf. With ALT+LEFT ARROW you jump back from an xref-link. 

[Bob_Niland]

Never having used JB, I'm not sure what it is supposed to do, and whether or not it is supported in all final document formats (PDF, HTML, eBook) and by all viewing clients. Also, there are multiple ways to be at any location in a PDF, arrived at by hytertext, search, bookmark, page # input, scrolling, paging or even a named (named destination) link from some other place entirely. So "back" could be ambiguous.

As Klaus points out, Acrobat Reader has an [Alt + [←]] for this, regardless of document. The main complaint here might be that it's not well known, not on the tool bars, and there seems to be no way to make it so [edit - see Winfried's reply].

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

In Acrobat there are icons for Previous/Next View. You can show them with

View | Show/Hide | Toolbar Items | Show Page Navigation Tools

Best regards

Winfried

[Barb Binder]

@marshallm10075190 I have observed this bug in at least the last two versions. I teach jumpbacks in my Advanced FrameMaker classes and it doesn't work in Acrobat/Reader for the majority of my students, even though we test it in FrameMaker first. (Once and a while, it does work.) When I look at the resulting file in Acrobat, the link box isn't there—so it is getting dropped on export. You can report this on tracker: https://tracker.adobe.com/#/home. Let us know after you do so that we can vote for it.

But really, I think @Winfried Reng has a better approach. Acrobat and Reader have a Previous View button built into the interface—but it has been off by default for years. The first thing I do after an upgrade is show the missing Page Navigation tools (and Page Display tools). As an Acrobat instructor, I can tell you that most of my students do not realize how easy it is to customize the toolbar, and how helpful it is for their workflow. The problem however, is that you will need to communicate this to your readers—because like my students—it's unlikely they know the button is available, but hidden.

Edit: As per @K.Daube and @Bob_Niland, Alt + Left Arrow is the Acrobat/Reader keyboard shortcut for Previous View. Alt + Right Arrow is Next View (like the Forward button in a browser). But again, without a functioning jumpback button, you will have to communicate this to your audience. 

Never having used JB, I'm not sure what it is supposed to do

@Bob_Niland The jumpback hypertext link will go back to the page you were on when you follow a link (any link). Let's say you link to a x-ref, and then want to get back to where you were—the jumpback command takes you back. Think of the Back button in your favorite browser. 

~Barb  

[marshallm10075190]

Thanks for your responses. I know about the alternatives that Acrobat offers for performing Jump Back. However, my PDF files go to friends and family who are not necessarily computer savy; so these alternatives may lie outside their knowledge base. Thus, I have tried unsuccessfully to add a hyperlink that does it for them.

I will take Barb's advice and give Tracker a shot. I will post after doing so.

Hope that all of you and yours have a healthy and happy holiday season.

[Bob_Niland]

I concur with the Acrobat defaults & typical user expertise.

For a current project, I address this to some extent with top margin navigations links. These are Xrefs on the Master Pages (12 different ones), and may provide links to Cover, Contents, Index, with ◁▷ indicators as appropriate.

[LinSims]

According to Adobe's help files for FrameMaker, the Jump Back command is not supported when converted to either PDF or HTML formats. It only works in FrameMaker.

In short, it isn't a bug. But it could be a feature request. 🙂

The below image is from Adobe's Help files, explaining which hypertext commands in FM are supported in PDF or HTML outputs. (NB: this is from 2019, but my recollection is that nothing has changed for 2020.)

[Bob_Niland]

LinSims: But it could be a feature request.

It might be a challenge to even define what the page element "back" instance would be be expected to do in an impressive pantheon of scenarios.

For any work-flow, is it "back" within the app only, or back out of the app if getting there was from some external context that triggered the app?

For just PDF, for example, the ways you could find yourself at some location in a document could include: in-document-ht (Xref, ToC, Index, LoR), PDF search result, PDF page# command, simple paging or scrolling, deep link from somewhere else in the known universe, etc.