InDesign Interactive PDF loses endnote links within document

[Karbo222]

I have the latest update of InDesign (15.1.2). When I save an Indesign publication with endnotes create in InDesign and save it as an Interactive PDF, the link from the endnote reference/number in the text does not take you to the actual endnote. It DOES if I save it as print PDF and select hyperlinks option.

There is NO hyperlink option available now in the "save as Interactive PDF" dialogue box???

Thanks!!

[JonathanArias]

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnote-references-don-t-work-in-pdf/td-p/10598255?page=1

[Karbo222]

Thanks for the link, Jonathan. But these were posted over a year ago and reference Catalina as the problem. I am not using Catalina?

[JonathanArias]

no problem. i did not know that so i figured this applied to you.

may i ask why you don't go with print .pdf since that works? do you have popups?

[Laubender]

Hi Karbo222,

as I tested and found, this is the minimum requirement that linking from endnote references to endnote texts will work:

PDF Export (Print)

Compatibility: Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4)

[x] Create Tagged PDF

[x] Hyperlinks enabled

If you want linking back from the endnote number at the start of the endnote text you have to be careful with formatting of that endnote number which in fact is a special character.

What worked:

The endnote is using a paragraph style without any specialities. No overrides, no character styles applied:

Result: No issue with linking back and forth between endnote reference number and number in the endnote text.

Now I had the idea to format that special character, the number that starts the endnote text with a character style.

Result: Linking from the endnote reference number to the endnote text worked. Backlinking did not.

More details in this thread:

Endnotes not exporting with links to PDF
Mr_Wonderstuff, Nov 18, 2020

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnotes-not-exporting-with-links-to-pdf/m-p/11628582#M40545...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnotes-not-exporting-with-links-to-pdf/m-p/11628643#M40546...

What broke the backlinking:

[1] Character style applied through a GREP Style

[2] Character style applied directly as formatting

[3] Properties directly applied as overrides without a character style

What finally worked:

[4] Character style applied as nested style through the applied paragraph style:

Character style to 1 tabulator character

I did not test on to eliminate other factors.

Maybe one of the used properties are the real culprit?

What I defined in that character style and also tried to apply as character override was:

Character width and height: 70%

Baseline Offset: 2 Pt

Fill Color: "C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0"

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

as I tested and found, this is the minimum requirement that linking from endnote references to endnote texts will work:

PDF Export (Print)

Compatibility: Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4)

[x] Create Tagged PDF

[x] Hyperlinks enabled

If you want linking back from the endnote number at the start of the endnote text you have to be careful with formatting of that endnote number which in fact is a special character.

What worked:

The endnote is using a paragraph style without any specialities. No overrides, no character styles applied:

Result: No issue with linking back and forth between endnote reference number and number in the endnote text.

Now I had the idea to format that special character, the number that starts the endnote text with a character style.

Result: Linking from the endnote reference number to the endnote text worked. Backlinking did not.

More details in this thread:

Endnotes not exporting with links to PDF
Mr_Wonderstuff, Nov 18, 2020

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnotes-not-exporting-with-links-to-pdf/m-p/11628582#M40545...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/endnotes-not-exporting-with-links-to-pdf/m-p/11628643#M40546...

What broke the backlinking:

[1] Character style applied through a GREP Style

[2] Character style applied directly as formatting

[3] Properties directly applied as overrides without a character style

What finally worked:

[4] Character style applied as nested style through the applied paragraph style:

Character style to 1 tabulator character

I did not test on to eliminate other factors.

Maybe one of the used properties are the real culprit?

What I defined in that character style and also tried to apply as character override was:

Character width and height: 70%

Baseline Offset: 2 Pt

Fill Color: "C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0"

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

I did a bug report at InDesign UserVoice.

Also posted a link to my test documents over there.

Please vote for fixing the issue:

Text formatting can break backlinking endnote texts to endnote refs when exported to PDF (Print)
Uwe Laubender, Nov 27, 2020

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/42062446-text-formattin...

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

Hi Karbo222,

the only solution I see for your problem ( I did not test this, but it's worth a try ) is the following:

[1] Export to PDF Interactive as you used to do this.

[2] Export to PDF (Print) with the following minimum requirements:

PDF Export (Print)

Compatibility: Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4)

[x] Create Tagged PDF

[x] Hyperlinks enabled

Go to Acrobat Pro DC. Open the PDF file you created in step [1] that contains all your interactive contents.

Use Acrobat's feature to exchange all pages with the pages of the PDF file you created in step [2].

Save to a new name.

Close the PDF and test its interactivity and endnote linking with Adobe Reader on OS X or Windows 10.

All other PDF reading apps could fail or support the features differently.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )