After publishing online,hyperlinks are not working

[InstantCJ]

We have a document in two versions, english and spanish. Both have hyperlinks throughout. The english version publishes fine, all the hyperlinks work, but when trying to publish the spanish version in the exact same manner, none of the links work when viewing online. However, if we download the spanish version PDF, all the hyperlinks are functioning.

Link to the english version:
https://indd.adobe.com/view/4e3a2a0a-da0e-4e19-86a0-64759d537d02

Link to the spanish version:
https://indd.adobe.com/view/aa46700a-8e4c-42b8-9b94-b0643733a608

[BobLevine]

PDFs created when using Publish Online are NOT interactive. Any hyperlinks that work are a matter of a PDF reader automatically converting them.

[InstantCJ]

Bob, thanks for the quick response. However, I'm not sure I follow...the english version's hyperlinks worked fine when we published, both when viewed online and when the PDF was downloaded. The spanish version is built from the same file, except with translated text.

[Diane Burns]

@BobLevine, I'm not reading your statement as exactly accurate, or maybe I'm mis-reading.PDFs created using Publish Online ARE interactive, at least as far as hyperlinks go, IF the user chooses a Print preset that has hyperlinks checked on. Not sure what you mean about a PDF reader converting them.

[BobLevine]

Yeah, I think maybe I read this one backward and there was a similar post the other day about issues with the PDF and buttons. May have had them mixed up. I blame a lack of coffee and I'm sticking to that.

Carry on!

[Diane Burns]

@BobLevine

More coffee good.  

[InstantCJ]

@BobLevine, @DianeBurns, I'm not sure what you mean by choosing a print preset with hyperlinks checked on. That doesn't seem to be part of the dialogue box when selecting Publish Online, unless I'm missing something?

[Diane Burns]

You create your own PDF preset from within InDesign, save it, then apply it in the advanced pane of the Publish Online dialog. Let me know if that helps.

But the built-in "Smallest File Size" preset does not have hyperlinks checked, so your PDF shouldn't work, unless you checked that option ON and saved the preset.

[Diane Burns]

Does the hyperlinks panel in the Spanish version have ”green lights” by the links in the Hyperlinks panel?

Also, regarding PDFs that are downloaded from your Publish Online page, they will have hyperlinks if you choose a custom Print preset in which you have turned on hyperlinks. I assume you did this with your Spanish version?

Are these separate files, or separate layers in the same file?

[InstantCJ]

Hi Diane, all the hyperlinks have green lights, yes. The english and spanish versions are two separate InDesign files. I chose "smallest file size" for the preset under "download PDF settings." All of this is being done directly from InDesign, we're not saving a PDF first and then publishing that. I don't see any other PDF settings options when going through the publish online process.

[Diane Burns]

This is puzzling. Weird the PDF for Spanish is ok, but the source Publish Online document isn't. I've never seen that before. If it would be possible for you to DM me a couple pages from the Spanish file that have links, I'd be happy to take a look. Don't need images, just the indd file.

The PDF that is available for download on the Publish Online page is always created from the same document you are Publishing Online. That's why this is so puzzling. Hyperlinks should either work, or not work, on both.

[BobLevine]

I wonder if there are any special characters in those hyperlinks that may be throwing things off.

[InstantCJ]

Just tried creating a custom PDF preset and that didn't work either. Let me save out a page with a hyperlink and send along.

[Diane Burns]

After looking at your .indd file, I have the solution, but no explanation of why. I post here in case it enlightens others.

I knew the file had some kind of corruption. I tried many things, including the standard of saving to .idml. But if I tried to make a new hyperlink, when I unchecked "Shared Destination" (which I do out of habit for any URL that is not actually used elsewhere in the document), the file always crashed, even the .idml version. I tried other things, including copying and pasting frames to new files, exported text, etc. and still could not get hyperlinks to work, even though they were showing green in the hyperlinks panel.

Then I found the corruption source: your paragraph style for body text. if I looked at the style definition, I saw all this garbage under the Style Settings description:

All this extra formatting can easily creep in when re-purposing styles, moving from one doc to another, etc.

To clean it up, click "Reset to Base." Then input only the actually formatting you need, in your case the font in 9/11.75, Track -5, Language = Spanish, Left Justify, etc.

That totally fixed it for me, let me know if it works for you.

And if any other brainiacs on the forums have seen this or have an explanation, I'd be curious to know why this affected hyperlinks!

[BobLevine]

I hereby declare Diane as InDesign Sleuth of the Day!

[Diane Burns]

Wow. Potentially huge bug discovered.

On further research, I discovered the file had the World-Ready Paragraph Composer applied to body text, which is completely unnecessary for Spanish. By simply changing it back to the Adobe Paragraph Composer, the hyperlinks suddenly work in Publish Online. And there are no line break changes, which was important for this client.

AnshulJain19​, please check this out, I will be testing a bit more and filing a bug report. Please let us know if you have anything to add.

[AnshulJain19]

Hi Diane,

World-Ready composer is not well supported in Fixed Layout EPUBs and Published documents from InDesign.

I would suggest everyone to vote for the issue on UserVoice if it impacts you to make it highly voted request on UserVoice:

publish online breaks hyperlinks – Adobe InDesign Feedback

Thanks

-Anshul

[RonaldChase3526]

I found that when I turned my hyperlinks into Buttons it made the action work on Online Published documents. I assigned the Action to Go To URL and that solved my problem. In this instance I created the hyperlink and additionally the Button elements seeming like double-work but the links should continue to work if the PDF document is downlonaded by the viewer as well as the original Online Published document. 

[BillyBarraclough]

Hey! I have just tried this and it still does not work for me.

I've tried making the hyperlinks from Buttons, from the original text I'm trying to link it to and from the object. I'm finding none of this works on any browser, on any device. Do you have any further suggestions or recommendations? Adobe live chat is closed today, and I have a work deadline tonight sadly. 

I'm on the latest version of InDesign (17.2), however I only updated this morning from the previous version, hyperlinks were not working then either.

I'm also having another issue that whenever I publish online it crops my document slightly on the bottom and right hand side, this is the case for any document, any size. Such a pain!

Thanks

[v27632323kfu8]

Hi there!

i have the same problem with you, just some months later. Have you ever found a solutionn?

Thank you, 

V.

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi @v27632323kfu8,

We are sorry to hear that hyperlinks are breaking for you after publishing the document. I am unable to reproduce the issue at my end on a windows machine.

• Would you mind telling us about the version of InDesign installed on your machine and the details of your operating system?
• Does that happen with all files or with a specific file?
• Is it possible for you to share a sample published link so that I can check on my end?

Please check my test link: https://indd.adobe.com/view/d7bb4c8e-cba2-4a47-9032-3f00d4c7de8d.

We will try our best to help.

Thanks,

Harshika 

[mojito6 · Accepted solution]

I struggled with this for a while too – it seems that it arbitrarily works sometimes and not others!

The best solution I've found is to make sure of the following:
The text layer that your hyperlink is within is UNGROUPED from any other objects and also on the TOP layer of your file.

Once I'd resolved that, the links were working perfecly when published online.