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patrick99
New Participant
February 28, 2023
Question

Create external Hyperlinks to open another pdf in Acrobat

  • February 28, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 2289 views

Hi,

I'm having some difficulties creating hyperlinks in my document. I already watched several youtube-clips and read quite some forum posts, but wasn't able to find a sound solution to my issue.

So here it is:

I have an ID-document with about 100 references to pdf-files. After publishing it (pdf) I would like to be able to directly click on the link to open the referenced file in Acrobat.

At best, I can even specify the page where to jump to.

 

I'm able to define hyperlinks in ID to the referenced files, but they keep opening in the default web browser.

When checking the link in Acrobat, it reads as action "open web link" (in my case in german "Webverknüpfung öffnen").

In Acrobat I could specify another action "Open file" which would open the file as requested in Acrobat, but I can't find that in ID to do that trick.

Changing all links in Acrobat is not an option as I would have to do it, after every export of the document.

 

I'm failing in specifying the jump page in the referenced pdf file. I tried ".pdf#page=3" like I would do with hyperlinks on the web, but that doesn't work. The only solution that worked for me, was to add an action in Acrobat ("jump to page view") that let me scroll to the requested page and define it as destination. Again not too much of an option in my case.

 

Any help appreciated very much!

 

Best and thank you,

Patrick

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

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patrick99Author
New Participant
March 1, 2023

Good Morning,

thnak you for your thoughts!

Maybe I made myself a little bit missunderstood - it's not a question of whether I do like reading PDFs in webbrowsers or undefined settings in the browser (actually it is set to open PDFs in Acrobat per default). In my case everything has to happen within Acrobat.

 

I took 3 screenshots to show the issue. By now I'm under the impression that ID has an export problem:

  1. ID Hyperlink: Setting up the hyperlink in ID. As you can see (cirlced), I create a file link ("Verknüpfen mit: Datei"). Other Options are: URL, E-Mail, Page, ...
    The OS should then decide with which app to open that particular file.

  2. ID Hyperlink result: That's the result in the PDF-export, where it reads open web link.
    Guessing that the OS user preferences are ignored, as it already specifies a route to a web browser.
  3. Acrobat Hyperlink: For comparison, you can define a file link-action in acrobat for hyperlinks.
    In this case you are even prompted for further details (new window, ...) when choosing a pdf-file.

 

So, my impression is, that ID does not write the export correctly.

Can anyone replicate that issue and have an answer on how to get the proper action?


Thank you,

Patrick

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Braniac
March 1, 2023

I believe I've done PDF to PDF linking, within a reader, not a browser, but the details aren't coming to me. I'm sure someone here has an up-to-date grasp on the methods.

 

I would expect that if any tool writes correct link information, it would be InDesign... as long as they are correctly defined.

 

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Braniac
February 28, 2023
quote

I'm able to define hyperlinks in ID to the referenced files, but they keep opening in the default web browser.

By @patrick99

 

This is caused by the user's computer system and what program has been designated to open PDF files. It's not controllable by anything we can program into the PDF file itself.

 

All of the browsers are "hijacking" the user's setting and opening PDFs in the default browser rather than in Acrobat or another brand of PDF reader.  It is becoming a severe problem throughout the industry.

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
BobLevine
BobLevine
Braniac
February 28, 2023

I'm not sure I'd go that far, Bevi. Many people are just fine with opening PDFs in a browser and to be honest, there's really nothing wrong with that for 99% of the population.

For PDFs that must be opened in Acrobat or Reader, it is incumbent upon the distributor of the PDF to specify that.

There's really nothing else that can be done.

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Braniac
February 28, 2023

I agree that a browser view is probably fine for some large number of PDFs for some large number of users, but I'm on Bevi's side that this is a facet of a relatively serious problem.

 

The browser wars never end, especially since they became so closely tied to almost every form of online revenue. The "thou shalt have no other browsers before me" mentality of the big half dozen players is not unlike Europe ca. 1914. No good is coming from it, nor ever will, and users are mostly too ignorant of the tech and the stakes to take meaningful action.

 

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