PDF links not working after download

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 22, 2022
2 replies
1057 views

Hi,

I have an InDesign document with many links - both within the document and to external URLs. I published it online via the Publish Online tool in InDesign and when viewed online all the links work, but when the document is downloaded from the online viewer, none of them work. What am I missing here?

Here is a link to it - https://indd.adobe.com/view/e9685465-178a-4c4e-93b9-ffea1b469da7

Thanks,

Lexi

Publish online

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi Lexi,

how did you do the "internal links"?

Did you use buttons? This kind of technique will not with Print PDFs. Just with the HTML authored stuff like Publish Online. You'd need an alternative.

Just an idea:

You can also apply hyperlinks with page targets to objects like rectangles on a page.

However, to make this work for both, Publish Online and the downloadable PDF, you have to add that additional functionality to the page contents. Not to the button objects that would not work at all.

Maybe not showing the appearance of interactive elements will help here, an option in the PDF Export preset. With the effect, that hyperlinks on rectangles stacked below the buttons will work; the buttons stacked above will not show at all.

Hm, could that be a plan?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

lexif34049532Author

Participant

I did not use buttons for the internal links, I applied hyperlinks with page targets to sections of text ("see page 24" for example). I output the file (Publish Online) both with showing the appearance of interactive elements and without, but still the internal links down work when the PDF is downloaded.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

"What am I missing here?"

Hm. I think you would like to have an Interactive PDF as output along with the Publish Online project for downloading.

This is not the case. Instead the exported PDF is of type Print PDF. What you can try is to use a customized export preset for for Print PDF that is able to export "live" functional hyperlinks.

There is a button in the export preset dialog for Print PDFs that enables hyperlinks. Try that.

"Include Hyperlinks" and perhaps also "Include Bookmarks" if you want bookmarks as well.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

lexif34049532Author

Participant

Thanks! This mostly worked - I edited the export preset to "Include Bookmarks" and "Include Hyperlinks", and the URL hyperlinks now work when I download the PDF, but the internal links (to jump between pages, for example), still don't work.

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