TOC Hyperlinks Using Framemaker 2015 Do Not Work

[airam_22]

TOC hyperlinks for 1,000-page manual do not work or are not clickable even if I performed the following:

1. Enabled Create hypertext links checkbox in Setup a Table of Contents window before clicking update TOC.
2. Added the tags that should have TOC links (Head 1, Chapter Name and Number).
3. Tried adding in the Reference Page of the TOC page: openObjectId
   <$relfilename>:<$ObjectType>:<$ObjectId>

I also tried generating another document with 50 pages and the TOC hyperlinks do not work even if the same steps were performed. Is there anyone who could help me as TOC links should be clickable to comply with WCAG 2.0?

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

When did this start?

Did you update your book after you changed the paragraphs to be in the TOC?

What happens, when you just use the FrameMaker default template and create a book and add a TOC and update?

Did this work before? Do you have a working TOC? If yes, rename your TOC file, remove the TOC from your book, create a new TOC, import paragraph formats from your old TOC file, then update the book.

Do you have the latest update (15.0.6.956)?

You should not need to change this openObjectID paragraph in the TOC.

Best regards

Winfried

[airam_22]

Hi, Winfried.

The TOC of our manual has always been not clickable. The TOC page was first created using FM9, we just update it using Update TOC button in FM. I also tried creating a new TOC by performing Add > Create Standalone TOC but the TOC is still not clickable. I am using Framemaker 2015 version 13.0.5.547. I remembered we did a workaround a year ago, and the TOC is already clickable but I couldn't find the instructions for making it clickable again after we reupdated the TOC. I'll try to look for the working TOC and reimport the styles and see if that works.

But maybe other people can help me out here, I don't want to remediate unclickable TOC links for a 1,000-page document using Adobe Acrobat, that will eat a lot of our development time. Thanks.

[frameexpert]

Open the TOC, choose View > Text Symbols and take a screenshot of the TOC. Please post it here. Thanks.

[airam_22]

Here's a screenshot of the existing TOC (some parts were blurred for proprietary reasons):

[Winfried Reng · Accepted solution]

Hi,

How do you create your PDF?

Do you use Save As PDF? This creates the hyperlinks automatically.

Or do you print to a PostScript file and then distill this to a PDF? Then Adobe PDF must be selected as your printer. You must also select Generate Acrobat Data in the Print dialog.

Best regards

Winfried

[airam_22]

I use the Save Book as PDF option and I tried Save as PDF and it still didn't work. Will try the second option you provided as well and let you know which one worked for us. Thanks, Winfried. Btw, when I tried running Read Out Loud on the TOC page alone, and it doesn't read anything. It just says, blank even if I enabled Create Hypertext Links when updating the TOC. Also, tried this step Open Book > Update Book after restarting FM.

[airam_22]

Update I retried today the following steps and the TOC links now work:

1. Deleted existing TOC page from the book
2. Created a new standalone TOC by clicking Add > Create Standalone TOC. I also still selected Appendix Number and Title, Chapter Number and Title, and Head1 to be included in the TOC.
3. Imported TOC formats from old TOC page
4. Saved the book as PDF
5. Enabled Tagged PDF, Create Bookmarks, and Create Named Destination for all Paragraphs features. PDF copy now has clickable TOC links.

Note though the Chapter number and Appendix number are not retrieved and are not displayed in the TOC page, I have to manually edit the page to enter chapter and appendix numbers. Also when running the Accessibility check using Acrobat Pro XI, TOC links are tagged to have Tag Annotation issue.

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

Good that your TOC has now active links!

When your chapter numbers and appendix numbers are not shown in your TOC, this could be caused by these issues:

Are your chapter number and the heading text and the appendix number and the heading text in the same paragraphs? If not, you must also select these paragraphs. (You mentioned something above, but I do not know how your paragraphs look like.)

You might need to go to the reference page of your TOC. There will be paragraphs like these:

<$paratext> <$pagenum>

Add the paranum variable at the beginning of the paragraph:

<$paranum> <$paratext> <$pagenum>

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/index.html#t=using-framemaker%2Fuser-guide%2Ftopic_aut...

Best regards

Winfried

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I still think there's something suspect in the way you are creating the TOC in FM (let alone when it gets over to PDF). Links should be working in FM first.

[Bob_Niland]

The usual suspect is that a Character Format has been applied to or within the paragraphs being auto-gathered for the entries, and this might include text in those paras that is Xref'd from somewhere else, or contains variables with ChFmts. Auto-hypertext breaks on ChFmt boundaries.

Due to extensive use of Xrefs, I'm expecting to have a seriously broken ToC in a current project. Being a short ToC, the plan is to convert it to a manually maintained Xref-based file when reasonably stable. If it were longer, I'd be looking at an aftermarket tool.