hyperlinks in imported Word doc

[hmedia05]

Hi there,

I have Word docx with live hyperlinks.  Importing (cut and pasting) from MSWord into a text box in our INDD layout for our mag, all interactivity on links are lost. Is there a setting I need to cross before the links stay live?  Also, another issue while in INDD, I have my advertisers embed links in their PDF ads, so when clicked as a web doc PDF later, the reader can be taken to the ad site.  Now it is not working.

I am on the latest INDD 18.0 on a Mac running Ventura 13.0.1, taking MS Word v16.67 (365) text across.  Then exporting as PDF for print and most importantly a lower rez for web display through Issuu.  I just don't want to have to re-enter all the links (100s) after the publication goes through the layout stage.

Any suggestions please?

[BobLevine]

Should just work. I just tested it with the latest version of Word and InDesign 2023.

Are you seeing this issue in InDesign or the PDF?

[hmedia05]

Hi Bob and thanks for coming to help.  

We are seeing the issue travel from Indesign through into the resulting PDF since it doesn't make it into INDD in the first place. We're on the latest Word, Indesign and on the latest Mac platform, using the latest Adobe Acrobat Pro. 

[Bill Silbert]

If rather than copying and pasting the text into an active text frame you use File>Place with Import Options checked with an active text frame you will get the Microsoft Word Import Options dialog as shown below. In this dialog you can make sure that all Styles and Formatting from the word document are maintained and if you have used a character style for your hyperlinks in the Word document that it will supercede any character styles with the same name that may exist in the InDesign file (although simply using a different name for the character style in either the Word file or the InDesign file would certainly be much easier).

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi @hmedia05,

Hope you're doing well!

We would like to follow up on your issue. Are you able to resolve the issue by following our expert advice? Please feel free to update the discussion if you need further assistance from us.

We would be happy to help.

Thanks,

Harshika

[hmedia05]

Thanks Bill, 

I'll pass these on to the designer and see how it rolls.   Yes, I reckon it's just a settings thing. Not sure how he imports the text.  It might be just a copy/paste.

[Joel Cherney · Accepted solution]

A few other caveats: There's a preference in InDesign for treating the clipboard as either raw text or rich text; if you have it set to raw text, it'll always strip out the hyperlinks. 

Also, when exporting PDFs, not all PDF export presets include hyperlinks, so you may have to select a different preset, or manually turn on hyperlink export:

[hmedia05]

Good point Joel, thank you!