Links to text anchors look OK in InDesign but don't work in PDF

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

I'm working with an InDesign document containing links to text anchors within the same document. The links look fine in the InDesign Hyperlinks panel, with correct sources connecting to correct destinations. When exported to EPUB, the links translated into HTML all work fine. But when exported to PDF, they almost all fail, even though Acrobat seems to recognize them as legitimate links.

A colleague and I have been tying ourselves in knots over this for a week. We are both experienced InDesign users whose livelihoods depend on working links!

[Mike Witherell]

What version of ID? What OS?
What settings are you using when exporting to pdf?
What software app are you using to view the resulting pdf?

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

Hi Mike — thanks for the reply.

I'm always careful to be sure that the "Bookmarks" and "Hyperlinks" check boxes are checked in the "Include" section of the PDF export settings.

I'm using InDesign 19.4 × 64 on Windows 11 Home Version 23 H2. I've also tried the export using both InDesign 19.4 and 19.1 on a Mac mini (Late 2014) running OS Monterey 12.7.4. No luck!

However, overnight I think I might have stumbled upon the source of the problem. I'll need to do further testing today, but if I'm right, I'll post details to the forum. I know that other InDesign users often run into problems with hyperlinks to text anchors.

Thanks again! — Jeremy

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

I should have added that I've tried several PDF reading applications: Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat Reader, Firefox, etc. on both platforms.

[nineyellowenglish]

I'm having the same issue in Sonoma on my Mac Studio and on my Macbook Pro. I know this was a problem in the past, but it seems to be rearing its head again. I've tried all of the fixes from past posts.

[Barb Binder]

@nineyellowenglish in this thread, are you referring to the links in your table of contents (as per your question here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/text-anchors-in-indesign-book-file-going-to-wron...), or are these elsewhere in the file?

~Barb

[nineyellowenglish]

I think my mistake was not creating a formal TOC--just a list of contents--I'll give that a try.

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

This may have nothing to do with it, but is your [Basic Paragraph] style completely unchanged from its default [No Paragraph Style] + next: [Same style]?