Multiple Hyperlinks Upload

[Giorgia25573841tcwf]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone know if it is at all possible to add mutliple hyperlinks at once to a table in a InDesign file? It is very time consuming to upload them one at a time otherwise. Thanks, Giorgia 

[Eugene Tyson]

There's a thread here if that helps you

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/automatically-create-hyperlinks-with-a-script/td...

[Joel Cherney]

Well, I can think of a few ways, but I don't know which one would work for you, as I'm not sure what you are doing. For instance, you might be laboriously moving hyperlinks to Web content from MS Word to a table in InDesign by copying and pasting each one individually, when you could be able to simply File -> Place the Word document into InDesign. Or maybe you have numerous places around the document that should all hyperlink to a table in your document, and you're making each hyperlink individually to point to that page, instead of making the table a Shared Destination?

Since I have no idea what you are actually doing, I can't really advise you. Can you describe your goal, and what you've done to try to get there?

[Giorgia25573841tcwf]

Hi Joel,

Thanks for your reply. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I am currently working on a promotional flyer that lists over 400 of our products and I would need each of the product codes to be linking to a specific landing page on our Website. I have the full list of products with description and hyperlink in an Excel file as well. Is there any way that I can mass upload them in order? So far I have only been able to hyperlink each product code manually which of course is very time consuming. Thanks again for your help.

[Joel Cherney]

Well, if you happen to use a Mac, then I think you should follow the link that Eugene posted. There is an Applescript posted by Rob Day in there that I believe does exactly what you want. 

If you have live hyperlinks in an Excel file, I think you might be able to just place the Excel and copy/paste the links, which would still be kinda clunky, although it would most likely reduce your total number of clicks. I'm going to try it out over here sometime tonight and post again if I come up with any pointers for you.

[Giorgia25573841tcwf]

thanks again. Unfortunately I don't have a MAC. I might try the Excel option you recommended, so just placing the file? thanks 

[Joel Cherney]

Well, if you have a column in your Excel file where your product codes are already clickable links, then yes, you can just place the Excel file, check the "Import Options" box when selecting your Excel file, pull down the "Table" dropdown in the Formatting section, and then your Excel table will be placed, and all the links will be live. 

But, if you have a column in Excel that has the actual URL (www.company.com/someproduct), and you want to automagically turn each product number (FML-2112) into a unique link (www.company.com/FML-2112, but with the display text FML-2112), then a different strategy is called for. It should totally be doable in InDesign with a bit of JS, but I am lazy, and we're already in Excel, right?   It's super easy to do in Excel.

[Giorgia25573841tcwf]

Okay so that sort of work but only for the first section of the table. But I have multiple sub categories as part of the overall "catalogue" and those are not taking, not even after placing separate files. Not sure if I am doing something slightly wrong here. I do have product codes that are already clickable links but would multiple headings affect the import? thanks again 

[Giorgia25573841tcwf]

Sorry correction, it is simply not importing the clickable product code links altogether.. 

[Joel Cherney]

Can you post a sample file of what you have in Excel, by any chance? I can make a fake sample that will show you what I am suggesting, based off of your screenshot. I think that the method I am suggesting still creates some manual copy-paste work for you, if the "fluourescent conjugated antibodies" are one of the "multiple headings" you mention above. I figure that doing some Excel work and copying and pasting groups of cells is less work than manually building four hundred hyperlinks. If it's worth your time to automate the process even further, then probably my Excel method by itself won't work, and there are probably a few other hacks or forms of automation we should look at. 

If it's worth your money to automate the process even further, then I think that the thread posted by Eugene is worth another look. One of the posters in that thread kinda danced around the fact that he has a script that does what you want, but it's not free, and these community forums don't really permit that type of commercial flogging of one's own wares. And I will never learn anything more about it, because I think he hasn't posted here in years, and I won't go anywhere near Facebook.