Skip to main content
jeffp54538785
jeffp54538785
Participant
May 1, 2018
Répondu

Can't set up hyperlinks

I am using InDesign CC 2018 on a machine running Windows 7. I want to set up a large document (to be turned into a pdf later) that will have multiple hotlinks on each page, to allow users to jump quickly to section contents pages and then to individual pages. I have made multiple attempts to set up a hotlink, being careful every time to follow the instructions in the online help document precisely. I have tried setting up hotlinks with the source on a Master page; I have tried setting up hotlinks with the source on a document page; I have tried setting up hotlinks whose sources are strings of text, and others whose sources are text boxes; I have tried setting up hotlinks with and without destinations; and I have tried saving test documents as InDesign files and as pdf files (with interactive content switched 'on'). Nothing I have done has resulted in a single instance of a working hotlink. Can anyone tell me what on earth is going wrong?

    Ce sujet a été fermé aux réponses.
    Meilleure réponse par jeffp54538785

    One other thought. When you highlighted text did you do it with the text tool or did you select the text frame with an arrow tool? The underline under  hyperlinked text only happens when the text has been selected with the text tool while it is being made into a hyperlink.

    If you still can't make it work when you get back to experimenting with this, please post relevant screen shots so that either myself, or whomever sees them first, can provide a clue as to how to help you.


    Bill, I have discovered the problem. When exporting the pdf, there is a pulldown option at the bottom of the window labelled "Interactive elements". In your screenshot in your first response, it is showing "Do not include", and I don't recall any instruction in the online guides to change that. The only other option offered by the pulldown is "Include appearance", which seems strange to me considering its apparent function, but selecting that option when saving the pdf makes the hotlinks active. (A user such as me would have ticked one of the boxes immediately above, such as "Hyperlinks", so you would assume that you would not need to give the same instruction twice.) I've now tested a pdf made with a text-string as the hyperlink source, and another using a text box as the source, and both worked. So, success at last. I hope this means that the entire document will work as hoped, when I finish creating it.

    Many thanks for your patient instruction.

    1 commentaire

    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 1, 2018

    When you export to pdf do you have "Hyperlinks" checked in the General section of the Export Adobe Pdf dialog window? See screen shot:

    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 1, 2018

    One other thing are you exporting as an interactive pdf or as a print pdf? The interactivity in Interactive pdfs are not recognized in many pdf readers so I would recommend exporting to a print pdf as in my first post.

    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 2, 2018

    Bill, thank you for your replies. FYI, I'm in the UK so I am on a different time to you. I posted my original question last night just before closing down. And today I've been sidetracked by having to deal with a faulty heating pump in my home.

    Anyway, to answer your points; yes, I did check the hyperlinks box in the Export window; the reader I was using was Adobe Acrobat Professional; and yes, I was hoping to see the link being active in the InDesign file (so I could check that it was functioning correctly) but it wasn't active in the pdf either.

    The purpose of my exercise is to create an easily navigable guide to journalistic editing procedures for colleagues in my workplace, which publishes an online magazine. I want to set up masterpages, each with about a dozen hotlinks already established -- so that I don't have to create each one individually on each page of a document that will be well over 100 pages long.

    I think this should be easy, so I can't see what it is that I am not doing, or should be doing that I'm not. Any guidance would be helpful.


    Setting up hyperlinks to navigate from one page to another is a relatively simple procedure. See screen shot:

    In this example I am using the red square (which is on page three of my document) as the actual link. In actual practice it is better to draw an unstroked and unfilled rectangle to place over the spot where you want the link or you can select text with the text tool and make that the link. In either case you would make the selection and choose "New Hyperlink" in the Hyperlinks Panel pull-down menu (picture on the right). When you do so the New Hyperlinks dialog box will appear (picture left) and in this case I've set it to navigate back to page one when it is ultimately clicked on. Make sure that the actual title of the InDesign file is written in the "Document:" field. Note that when the object became a hyperlink that its selection became a dashed line. If I'd used type it would get an underline under it. Note that when it became a hyperlink it got a listing in the hyperlinks panel. When I tested this in a pdf made in the manner described in my first post, it worked perfectly.

    Conditions d'utilisationAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices