hyperlinks in Ai

I have a PDF that I created and hyperlinked in Illustrator CS6 that is online HERE.

You DO NOT have to to anything special to create hyperlinks in a PDF made in Illustrator. Simply type out the URL the way you would in an internet browser (www.site.com) and when you save as a PDF a hyperlink will automatically be generated in the file.

Try it, type a random URL in an Illustrator file and save as a PDF (I always use the [Smallest File Size] preset), when you view that PDF in a browser, the URL will be clickable.

If you want to link icons/images/random words, simply make a text layer containing the desired URL, resize it to fit overtop of the area you want to be clickable, make it transparent so you can't see it, and save as a PDF. One thing you need to be cautious of when doing this is to make sure your URL is all on one line. If you make a text box, random hyphens- will appear in the address wherever the URL broke to wrap.

Example:

www.thisisaverylongURL.com

Illustrator text box:

www.thisisaver-

ylongURL.com

Renders this link in the PDF:

www.thisisaver-ylongURL.com

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I know this post is forever old, but it took me a while to discover how stupid easy this task really is, so I thought I'd share.

I've tried all of the above suggestions to no avail, but something that looks like it worked for me is to insert the link into the PDF using Acrobat (I'm using Acrobat 9 Pro), not Illustrator. I'm planning to attach the PDF I created in Illustrator to an email and want the link in it to be clickable when the recipients open the PDF.

What I found instructions online to do is to have the PDF open in Acrobat, and up on the top toolbar, click Tools > Advanced Editing... > Link Tool. Your cursor will turn into a crosshair with which you can select the area of the PDF image that you want to be a link.

Once done selecting, a dialog box will open, prompting you to choose whether you want the link area you just selected to be visibly outlined or invisible, then what you want a click on the area to do (I chose "Open a web page").

Click "Next", type or copy/paste the URL into the provided box, and click "OK". Now the link is clickable in the open PDF.

Hope this works for others (and for my recipients!).

I love how, in true Illustrator fashion, there are 12 different ways to accomplish the same end effect.

(note: this is obviously an exaggeration, there actaully 300+ ways to do the same thing in Illustrator)

This is a bit late, but I have found another way to attach urls to items in Illustrator (CS5).

1. Open the 'Attributes' tool panel CTRL+F11 or Windows >  Attributes
2. Select the item you want to add a url to
3. Select either polygon or rectangle from the 'image map' drop down
4. Type a url in the box below

You can test the link by clicking on the 'browser' button

Actually, I just found a slightly easier way.

Write out the URL, and highlight it. Then, in the Attributes panel choose <Image Map: Rectangle>. In the <URL> field retype your URL. When you save the document as a PDF, the written URL will then be clickable.

I'm guessing this is too late for you, but maybe it will come up for the next person.

I found a really easy solution by mistake.

1) Create the hyperlink in Microsoft Word (like an email address or web link). Save the file.

2) Go to your open Illustrator file.

3) File --> Place

4) Select the saved Word document to place. Make sure that you do not check the "remove text formatting" box.

5) Voilà! Your hyperlinks are imported and work when saved as a PDF.

Yes you can. But in typical Illustrator fashion, the interface for the whole thing is utterly ridiculous.

The resulting PDF is here. Open it and you'll find that the URL is just text (not an image) and is a functioning hyperlink.

1. Select a text object that contains a URL.
2. Object>Slice>Make.
3. Object>Slice>SliceOptions.
4. Slice Type: HTML Text. Turn on the Text is HTML checkbox. Note that the "Text Displayed in Cell" is not, in fact, the text displayed in the cell, but HTML code. Note that you can't edit the code.

If you must do this kind of thing in Illustrator, look up Slices in the online Help for more info.

If, as you say, you're not a web-head, but you want to see how easy building a perfectly sensible simple web page in a drawing program can be, download a demo of Xara Xtreme 5 Pro and try it out for a few days.

JET

You can't do this in AI. You would need to create buttons in Acrobat or Indesign.