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Creating Destinations in InDesign - can I even do this?

New Here ,
Apr 27, 2021 Apr 27, 2021

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I have a total rookie question here. I need to create a PDF help file for a client of my software business. He wants context-sensitive help from within the (C++) program, which I thought I could do with a system() function call such as system("helpfile.pdf#destination_name"). I tried creating destinations in my sample .indd file, and saved it to PDF. The system call does nothing. If I remove the "#destination_name" tag from the string, the file opens in Acrobat Reader, but not where I want it to be.

I'm sure I'm doing it wrong, but since I bought InDesign to publish a children's book on the side, I am not even sure I can do what I want with the program. Any help / guidance is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 27, 2021 Apr 27, 2021

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Have you tried using the hyperlinks panel and the cross-references panel?

Mike Witherell

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New Here ,
Apr 27, 2021 Apr 27, 2021

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I have tried following the InD help, which seems to only be for internal hyperlinks, e.g. TOC, etc. As I said, I'm probably doing it wrong.

 

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New Here ,
Apr 27, 2021 Apr 27, 2021

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Hello Mike,

First, thank you for responding.Since I don't want to chance messing up the actual help file, I am experimenting with a file named "TestHelpManual.pdf", which I export from InDesign. Right now I have just 2 links on two different pages in the manual for testing.

I opened the hyperlinks panel as you suggested, and it indicated the URLs were unavailable for my two test destinations. Since the customer wants the manual to be local on the hard drive rather than on the web (this actually makes sense for his specific application), I then entered the disk path information for the URL. Still no go. InD indicates the URL is unavailable.

It seems to me that this would be a common application, so maybe I'm just not using the correct search terms?

 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 27, 2021 Apr 27, 2021

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Hi Bruce,

did you try to do this in Acrobat Pro DC ?

If my memory serves right there should be a solution with JavaScript in Acrobat.

The issue is "relative file paths" vs "absolute file paths", I think.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

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New Here ,
Apr 28, 2021 Apr 28, 2021

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Hello Uwe,

 

Thank you for responding.

I have not yet tried Acrobat, as I do not have a subscription for it - only InDesign. Since multiple articles indicated that I could do what I want to do in InDesign, I was attempting to try it out. Maybe the feature is no longer supported and I just have to concede to buying an Acrobat subscription for the duration of the project. I suppose I can get a trial copy of Acrobat long enough to see if it works, and then buy the subscription for a few months if it does.

I agree with you that relative vs. absolute file paths is probably the issue. I am sure there is a simple solution, but I have not stumbled upon it yet.

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