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Endnote roundtripping weirdness when exported to interactive PDF

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 12, 2020
3 replies
1287 views

Kia ora,

I have a file (for a journal that is released as fixed layout epub and pdf) and I am having a NIGHTMARE with endnote links. I place a Word file with endnotes, tidy it up in terms of style (I map them but it's a little hit and miss), and for about half of the endnotes the link from the endnote list back to the in-text position doesn't work. All the links from the superscript in-text number take me to endnotes, just not vice versa. Some of them do work. I can see no formatting logic for which ones work and which don't. And, they are all linked if I do a right click>go to endnote reference or go to endnote text. Here's me doing a click around so you can see what I mean:

I had this a few times on the first edition I did using this template and ended up replacing some endnotes manually. But this time there are far more not linking, and sometimes even the relink doesn't work. On occasion the new ones do work until I remove the old one or apply a character style.

Anyone got suggestions for where I can 'pop the hood' to see what's going on? I am on the most recent CC release (updated yesterday) and on a Macbook with Catalina 10.15.6.

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Laubender

Hope you will vote for fixing the issue:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/42062446-text-formatting-can-break-backlinking-endnote-text

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

I did a bug report at InDesign UserVoice.

Also posted a link to my test documents over there.

Please vote for fixing the issue:

Text formatting can break backlinking endnote texts to endnote refs when exported to PDF (Print)
Uwe Laubender, Nov 27, 2020

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/42062446-text-formatting-can-break-backlinking-endnote-text

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi JoJoJoJoJoJo,

there is news about endnote backlinking I like to share.

I also had the issue and found several causes, maybe not all, why backling did not work.

It could be the formatting of the special character, the number, you see at the beginning of every endnote text.

What worked:

Let's begin this journey with endnote text where only a paragraph style without any specialities is applied:

Result: No issue with linking back and forth between endnote reference number and number in the endnote text.

Minimum requirement for PDF export is:

PDF Export (Print)

Compatibility: Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4)

[x] Create Tagged PDF

[x] Hyperlinks enabled

Now I had the idea to format that special character, the number that starts the endnote text with a character style.

Result: Linking from the endnote reference number to the endnote text worked. Backlinking does not.

More details in this thread:

Endnotes not exporting with links to PDF
Mr_Wonderstuff, Nov 18, 2020

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnotes-not-exporting-with-links-to-pdf/m-p/11628582#M405451

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnotes-not-exporting-with-links-to-pdf/m-p/11628643#M405460

What broke the backlinking:

[1] Character style applied through a GREP Style

[2] Character style applied directly as formatting

[3] Properties directly applied as overrides without a character style

What finally worked:

[4] Character style applied as nested style through the applied paragraph style:

Character style to 1 tabulator character

I did not test on to eliminate other factors.

Maybe one of the used properties are the real culprit?

What I defined in that character style and also tried to apply as character override was:

Character width and height: 70%

Baseline Offset: 2 Pt

Fill Color: "C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0"

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

JoJoJoJoJoJoAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks Uwe, very comprehensive. Definitely somehting with the character styles. I just gave up on them at the end!

L

Laubender

Correct answer

Community Expert

Hope you will vote for fixing the issue:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/42062446-text-formatting-can-break-backlinking-endnote-text

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi,

you said: "All the links from the superscript in-text number take me to endnotes, just not vice versa."

Also noticed this. Seems to be one-way, only. It very much surprises me that some endnote texts link back to the reference number in your text with an exported interactive PDF. What is your PDF viewing application?

You tagged your post with "Bug" and "EPUB". Are you seeing differences in behavior when exporting to EPUB instead of PDF Interactive? What kind of EPUB do you export? What's your EPUB reading device and software?

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

JoJoJoJoJoJoAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the response. I'm using Adobe Acrobat for viewing. I don't really care if the links don't work in something else, as long as the function is uniform! I actually ended up removing all the character styling on the endnote list numbers. By and large this has worked, and at least my manual repairs seem to work. My ePub is fixed layout so the endnotes don't link or hover at all anyway (my bad with the tags). I assume the character style was adding some kind of tags that were invisible to me. Frustrating, but not the end of the world to not have them looking exactly as I wanted.

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