# in URL of Hyperlink in Hyperlinks panel is substituted with %23 when opened in browser from panel

[Laubender]

Hi together,
when working with hyperlinks with URL destination an URL like:

https://wiki.selfhtml.org/wiki/HTML/Elemente/a#Siehe_auch

will not be transferred to the browser as is when the menu command "Go to Destination" is used or if the "green" bullet in the panel is clicked that indicates a correct and connectable hyperlink destination.

Instead character # will be substituted with %23 like that:

https://wiki.selfhtml.org/wiki/HTML/Elemente/a%23Siehe_auch

Correct page view when the URL is copied to the browser:

Incorrect page view when the menu command "Go to Destination" of the Hyperlinks panel is used:

Result:

Depending on the web site it also is possible that a 404 error ( page not found ) could emerge.
Example URL showing the page correctly:

https://www.histaminintoleranz.ch/en/symptoms.html#zusammenfassung

Hyperlinks panel from my German InDesign 2023:

Bad result:

My tests on macOS with several versions of InDesign reveal:

InDesign 2019 > OK: # remains #
InDesign 2020 > OK: # remains #
InDesign 2021 > OK: # remains #

InDesign 2022 > BUG: # is substituted with %23
InDesign 2023 > BUG: # is substituted with %23

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Laubender]

Some things to add:

[1] Export to PDF do not show the bug. The hyperlinks will be OK.

[2] For scripters: using method showDestination() on [object Hyperlink] will show the same bad results.

And please vote for fixing the bug at InDesign UserVoice:

# in URLs of Hyperlinks in Hyperlinks panel is substituted with %23 when opened in browser from panel
Uwe Laubender, June 09, 2023

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/46757833--in-urls-of-hy...

Attached are two sample InDesign documents that show the bug with InDesign 2022 and 2023.

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Manan Joshi]

Hi @Laubender,

Setting the scripting engine to a previous version also did not help. I tried the following, and still the results were wrong

app.scriptPreferences.version = 15.0
app.documents[0].hyperlinks[0].showDestination()

-Manan

[Laubender]

Thanks Manan for testimg!

The same results on Windows.

All versions of InDesign between CS6 and InDesign CC 2021 have no issue with the # character in the Hyperlinks panel.

Windows version of InDesign 2022 > BUG: # is substituted with %23
Windows version of InDesign 2023 > BUG: # is substituted with %23

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Laubender]

Just another note on the issue:

It seems that this bug was also a big thing with a previous version of Acrobat Pro a couple of years ago:
The weblink creation tool in some versions of Acrobat was broken; it seems, that it was fixed with version 2020.009.20067, but I cannot verify this. Below some replies from a thread in the Acrobat user forum that started in 2014:

# ist replaced by %23 in URLs ==> Error 404
sdfkjhbf23, Feb 05, 2014
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/ist-replaced-by-23-in-urls-gt-error-404/td-p/5811...

6 (!) years later in the same thread:

# ist replaced by %23 in URLs ==> Error 404
ls_rbls, Jun 11, 2020
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/ist-replaced-by-23-in-urls-gt-error-404/m-p/11201...

Quoting: "Is this happening in your macOS even if you've updated to version 2020.009.20067 of Acrobat?
The issue was addressed in this update. But if you have updated to the latest version and you still experience the issue on mac computers, the bug seems to be only related to using the weblink plug-in tool."

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )