Indesign Text Anchor to PDF Destination - Adobe Support Community

Report · Sep 09, 2020

I am having problems with a hyperlinke between two PDF documents created and exported from InDesign. Since you can check links in InDesign without having to export the document (Hyperlinks Panel > [click the green dot] my testing and trying to fix this shortcut this process by just clicking the green dot in the "From" document in InDesign rather than exporting and clicking on the link. Both documents are posted online in PDF format. Below are the details of what I tried. Maybe someone can clue me in on what I did wrong and then this will serve as a useful tutorial for others.

Here's the problem from the organization's perspective. We would like to have a section about Qualified Evaluators in the Appalachian Search and Rescue Conference (ASRC) Administrative Manual that includes hyperlinks to the relevant sections of the ASRC's governing documents; in this first case, the ASRC Credentialing Policy Manual which is already posted online in PDF format. Seems straightforward.

The easiest way to do this is, in the Administrative Manual, to:

Scribble down on a piece of paper which page in the Credentialing Policy Manual discusses Qualified Evaluators (in this case, with the current version of the Credentialing Policy Manual, it's page 10)
In the Admin Manual, type some text saying that Qualified Evaluators are discussed in the Credentialing Policy Manual
Select that text with the mouse
Go to the Credentialing Policy Manual in a browser window, and copy the URL to the Windows clipboard
Go to the Hyperlinks Panel (not the Links panel with a linked chain icon, but the one with a globe of the Earth)
In the top box of the Hyperlinks Panel, paste the URL of the Credentialing Policy Manual
At the end of that URL in the top box of the Hyperlinks Panel, add: "#page=10", thusly:

http://archive.asrc.net/ASRC-Training/ASRC-Credentialing/2016-05-15-ASRC-Credentialing-Policy-Manual-1.0.pdf#page=10

Now, press Enter and you will see:

In the above screenshot, the line at the bottom is now highlighted, and shows
Voilà! In the browser, there is the PDF of the Credentialing Policy Manual, positioned at page 10.

But, people say, what if we add something to the Credentialing Policy Manual and that section about Qualified Evaluators is now on page 12? Hmph. Back to the drawing board (or in this case, typing board).

It is possible (although hard to learn and remember, as it's hidden in an obscure dusty corner of InDesign) that we can add a Text Anchor to some text in InDesign in the section right at that section on Qualified Evaluators in the Credentialing Policy Manual.

Use the mouse to select the text "Qualified Evaluator" that heads that section of the Credentialing Policy Manual.
Now – and here's the tricky part – go to the Hyperlinks Panel, click on the "hamburger menu" button at the top right (three stacked lines that looks like a hamburger), and click New Hyperlink Destination.
In the resulting dialog box, make sure the Type is set to Text Anchor, and accept the default name for this Text Anchor, which is "Qualified Evaluator" and click OK.
Check to make sure that you did, in fact, create this Text Anchor:
If InDesign is not already showing hidden characters: (Top Menu) Type > Show Hidden Characters
Look very carefully at the beginning of the section title Qualified Evaluator: there should be a little blue colon at the beginning of the section title, which shows that we created a Text Anchor here. In the screenshot below, it is there. It is very, very hard to see; maybe we need a magnifying glass? But it is there.

Now, export the Credentialing Policy Manual as a PDF, using the top menu: File > Adobe PDF Presets > [Smallest File Size] and accept or modify the filename. In the resulting dialog box, check the Create Hyperlinks box; otherwise leave the defaults as is. (You might want to save this under a new name; in the screenshot below, I have done so and named it Small with Links.)

Move the file to the appropriate place on the web.
Back in the Admin Manual in InDesign, in the text, click on the hyperlink to the Qualified Evaluator section, then go to the Hyperlinks Panel.

Look at the bottom higlighted line; at the right is a dot (green in my case) that indicated the link is OK. Click on the green dot to bring up the file in a browser window.
And, unfortunately, the PDF in the browser window is positioned at the beginning of the PDF and not where we want it. Hmph.
Open the PDF in Acrobat and then View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Destinations and you see (after adjusting the column widths):

Hmph. The destination is there. Search the web to see if there is anything we missed in the way of formatting the URL; nope. Try Export as and use Interactive PDF. Nope. Can't find the Destination Qualified Evaluator in the Destinations Pane of the PDF, and besides which it doesn't work. Try changing the name of the Text Anchor by replacing the space with a hyphen as we know about PDFs with spaces in their names turning into %20:

Nope, that doesn't work either.

Try adding that number that appears in the PDF Destination Pane after the name Qualified Evaulator:

Nope. That doesn't work either.

Give up and spend an hour making screen shots and posting this note hoping someone can point out the one obvious (in hindight) stupid error I made.

Thank you.

Report · Sep 09, 2020

I am having problems with a hyperlinke between two PDF documents created and exported from InDesign. Since you can check links in InDesign without having to export the document (Hyperlinks Panel > [click the green dot] my testing and trying to fix this shortcut this process by just clicking the green dot in the "From" document in InDesign rather than exporting and clicking on the link. Both documents are posted online in PDF format. Below are the details of what I tried. Maybe someone can clue me in on what I did wrong and then this will serve as a useful tutorial for others.