Link to external document in PC

[A. Sterbak]

Hello,

I am trying to do a link to external document, that is not in the book structure.

I am able to do a link to website, but I am not able to open pdf or html file, that is saved in my PC.

Let´s say that I want to do two links (italic blue text), that can be found by the path below on the photo.

How could I do that please?

And is there some way how to insert a relative path to a document just in case, that the other user save the destinated files to a different folder?

Thank you very much.

Adam

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What sort of output are you creating? The files have to exist someplace where they will be accessible by whoever is trying to use the links. 

[A. Sterbak]

I create PDF final output.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Why not add the external file as an attachment in the PDF? You can adjust your links in Acrobat Pro.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

See https://community.adobe.com/t5/framemaker-discussions/hyperlinking-from-framemaker-to-an-external-do...
and https://community.adobe.com/t5/framemaker-discussions/can-you-hyperlink-to-an-external-document/td-p...  ??

[A. Sterbak]

When I have the linked PDF (TeLi_00-00-00.pdf) in the same folder as final book PDF (UntitledBook1.pdf), then the link works.

But I guess that the solution of @Matt-Tech Comm Tools also solves the problem with different absolute path to document when e.g. the customer saves the PDF files in his PC to the different folder. https://community.adobe.com/t5/framemaker-discussions/link-to-external-document-in-pc/m-p/13979303#M...

But unfortunately I do not fully understand how to procceed this in my case. Dear @Matt-Tech Comm Tools could you write me please, what to type in to the marker, to get the functional link please?

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

Hi A.,

For the PDF link to work properly, you need to specify the relationship of the primary document to the destination document.

If your PDFs will be on a user's machine, you'd need to establish that the links are in the same folder, or otherwise "findable" to the primary document.

If your PDFs are posted to a server, including on the internet, things are easier.

Which are you doing?

-Matt

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

In re-reading your initial question, I see that your PDFs will exist locally on your user's machine.

The only way you'll get the link to work is to have these PDFs exist in a known location on the drive. Unless they are installed as part of a software installation, I don't know that you'll have luck enforcing the link.

If this is part of a software install, get your engineers to provide the final locations of the PDFs and then use those paths to craft the message URL text to properly link them.

Personally, I would expect it to be easier to load the PDF on the web, and then link to the URL as you would any other web destination.

-Matt

[A. Sterbak]

Yes I do understand. The solution with the link to web is the best. But we are in the situation, that the users are not permissed to use the internet.

So I have and idea to make one overall document that is created of the partial parts/books (this partial part is the independent book normally).

So the single books will be primary documents published to PDF with pagenum, TOC etc. with links inside this book. We need to keep these independent books ready to print to fulfill some regulations...

Then I will use these independent books as sources to one overall documents that consists of 4 books let´s say. And in this overall secondary document I will be able to create cross-references because I am still in one document. This secondary dokument will be published in HTML5 and stored localy in computer. So in this document we will be able to do links between chapters that is not previusly in the same book.

Is it possible to do it like this? And is possible to connect more books in FM to create the overall book or it is neccassary to build up completely new book from single chapters?

[Winfried Reng]

In FrameMaker you can create books inside of a book. I had not yet used this feature, but I would recommend to get more information about this.

When you want to create a single PDF all links will work.

If you create several PDFs, the user must keep all PDFs in the same folder structure as on your PC. That's independent of whether you manage your documentation in a single book with or without sub-books or in several books.

[Jeff_Coatsworth · Accepted solution]

I use this book-of-books feature for one of my projects - I normally only create PDFs of the child books, but I know if I do one for the main book, then links should work because when I create HTML5 output (the main output) then links work fine between books.

[A. Sterbak]

OK thank you. But I have one little problem with publishing to HTML. The published document doesn´t contain the pictures and text from reference pages, that are connected to paragraph style.

Do you have some advice?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

IIRC, all graphics that are going to make it into the HTML5 need to be in an anchored frame - but I could be wrong on that one.

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools · Accepted solution]

Yes, when publishing PDF, everything exports.

When publishing HTML, only graphics in the main text flow export.

However, graphics in Frame Above/Below are part of the paragraph definition, and are not included.

The solution to that is to modify the CSS for that content to supply the graphics in a similar fashion.

The CSS is actually not that tough, but if you don't "speak" CSS, you can easily hire someone via Fivrr, etc. to write the code for you.

The other option is to manually place the graphics in anchored frames prior to exporting to HTML, but I strongly suggest the CSS route!

-Matt

[A. Sterbak]

Thank you Matt.

[FrameMaker-dk · Accepted solution]

In the Publish panel under the output settings for images there is this checkbox:

It makes sure that images referenced in Frame Above and Below will be included. The css FrameMaker generates to visualize this could be better, though.

[K.Daube]

IMHO the hypertext marker should have this syntax:

message openfile path

for example

message openfile C:/FM/_zkouška/TeLi_00-00-0O/Basic HTML/TeLi_00-00-00

Please note that backslashes need to be replaced by forward slashes or escaped. Blanks are of no harm:

message openfile G:/Filetypes, special files/Dir name with blanks/FM with blanks.pdf
message openfile G:\\Filetypes, special files\\Dir name with blanks\\FM with blanks.pdf

Edit 2023-08-02 12:43

You will have no problem to access a PDF, but other file types may create a security problem. See my post (at the end) in

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader-discussions/this-file-is-set-to-be-launched-by-the-pdf...