Why does FM loosing the hyperlink function in TOC after character formats? Or is there a workaround?

[claudehowald]

I'm working in a FrameMaker-Book.

Chapter 1 uses heading1 and in the text for heading1 there is one letter superscripted with a character format "sup".

In the Table of Content (TOC) I find the superscripted letter perfectly again, but the hyperlink doesn't work anymore.

Exemple:

Hello this is my ^high heading1 title

In TOC I also find the same text correctly again, but from "high" until the end of the line, the hyperlink doesn't work anymore. Neither in FrameMaker nor in the PDF I'm writing.

I have tested it with FrameMaker 12 and 13 in the German version and on FrameMaker 7.2 English version.

Is there a workaround?

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Hmmm. I'm guessing the workaround is to fix it in Acrobat after you create the final PDF with the Link tool. Here's how text links work in FrameMaker:

• if a hypertext marker is in a para without a character tag, the whole paragraph is the hotspot.
• if a hyperlink marker is inside a character tag within the para, the hotspot is the bounds of the character tag.

In your situation, the marker will appear at the beginning of the line, and the character tag is further across the page, and there isn't anyway I know to change it.

Framemaker TOC's with inconsistent hyperlinks - roundpeg Blog

[claudehowald]

That is what I was afraid of. But it really seems the only solution.

We truly have this situation with character tags in TOC only because of E-Books, before in print, it makes no troubles. But when you need working hyperlinks, it isn't funny.

Thank you so much for this helpful answer, we have to work out the quality aspects in the internal process.

Kind regards.

C

[Bob_Niland]

See also TOC link with a subscript character does not work in PDF

There is apparently no fix for this problem, as there's a good chance it would break things elsewhere.

For FM 8 and later, if you can implement the superscript as an inherently superscripted normal Unicode character(s), and they are populated in the font, do that instead of using a Character Format.

There's another possible alternative (if I recall correctly). If you can put up with the affected character(s) not being superscripted in the TOC, delete that Character Format from the TOC's Character Catalog. TOC (and Index) only honor incoming Character Formats if they know what they are.

[claudehowald]

Thank you Bob for this helpful answer. Nonetheless it won't work in my situation. We produce education books. And one of the great aspects with FrameMaker is, to handle the "teacher-version" AND the "students-version" in the same source. To highlight the important words in the introductional texts to the teacher, we're using character tags. And some of this highlighted words seems to be in titles. Because the highlightening is only a color-change it is easy to handle it with character tags.

We now take care, not to highlight words in titles, that will be the most efficent workaround.

Thanks for the tip with superscript. 🙂

[drbotkin]

I’ve also faced with the same problem using FM Version: 14.0.2.425

Well, it is possible to fix the problem in Adobe Acrobat (after you have generated PDF). Still, I'm sure this is not the best solution.

BarbBinder mentioned that the problem is dealt with "character tag". The post and answer(s) date back to couple of years, but “Yes”, unfortunately the problem still exists.

The solutions I've found:

-    Open another "proper" TOC file, and then import ALL formatting styles. Next, update the book, and then generate PDF.

-    For every "paragraph" style used in TOC, make sure that the "default" character style is used (or make sure that the only "character" style is used through the whole "paragraph" style entries). It's hard to explain without showing screenshots, but let us imaging TOC style, which has 2 or 3 “Tab” stops. In this case, every “Tab” stop may have its own "character" style. Thus, in order to fix the bug, you have to apply the same "character" style for the whole paragraph (all "Tab" stops).

!!!! Note: IMHO, this is not the best solution. You set paragraph style to use the іфьу “character” style, and even generate proper PDF file. BUT, as soon as you update (“Refresh”) the book, the "pre-defined" character styles are applied again. Thus, next time, you’ll have to do the same job.

-    Change "pre-defined" TOC character styles. To do so, in FM open the TOC file. Then, switch to the "Reference Pages" view. Then update every part of TOC "paragraph" styles, so they only "character" style is used. Alternatively, in the “Character Catalog”, force using the “Default Font”. Save the changes. Next, get back to the "Body Pages" view. Save the changes ("just in case..."), then update the book (“Refresh”). Create PDF file. TOC links should work properly now.