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hyperlinked field in MS Access 2003

J1000
Registered: Jun 13 2008
Posts: 8

Hi, I have a report that contains a hyperlinked field in MS Access 2003 that I am trying to export to Acrobat 8 Professional. The links don't work unless the link display text is the URL itself. Is there any way that I can make the links work and not have to display the website names, which will be incredibly long? The display text is what we really want, as that is what is informative, not the website address.

THIS WORKS:
display text is http://www.google.com
hyperlink is http://www.google.com

THIS DOESN'T WORK:
display text is Exhibit 1
hyperlink is http://www.google.com

We want to be able to keep the display text as Exhibit 1, etc., and have that be the text that is clickable in Adobe, and have the link go to the website. I have tried this using PDFMaker as well as a different PDF writer. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jen

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8.0, Windows
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Hi,
The only way to obtain "extras" in a PDF output from MS Access is via the Adobe PDF Maker (installed with installation of Acrobat Standard/Pro).
"Printing" to PDF sends content directly to Distiller which will not provide "extras" in the output PDF.

Looking at the PDF Maker associated with MS Access I see no setting for making links (such as is found in PDF Maker associated with MS Word).

So, the initial output PDF has no links.
Even, if Adobe PDF Maker's "Create PDF" is used.

That you have links provided for "http://...." or "www.example.com" comes from a default configuration
feature of Acrobat that recognizes such text strings are generally associated with web links and so,
creates the web link automatically to provide greater end-user usability.

While I've not look close, there might be something in Adobe's
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdfmark_reference.pdf]"pdfmark Reference"[/url]
Or, you may be able to do something with the output PDF, after creation, with Acrobat JavaScript.
You may want to check at the AUC's [url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewforum.php?id=25]JavaScript Forum[/url].

Be well...

Be well...

J1000
Registered: Jun 13 2008
Posts: 8
Thanks for your reply. I was hoping there'd be a solution or workaround that doesn't involve programming as no one here is a programmer. Tried a workaround to output to Excel or Word, before then outputting from those apps to PDF, but ran into problems with Excel truncating text and formatting issues with both Excel and Word.

I see what you mean about the default feature where Adobe links URLs. For kicks, in Access I created a link with display text of www.cnn.com and it points to address www.yahoo.com. So the "CNN link" in Access opens Yahoo in the browser. After exporting to PDF, the "CNN link"opens CNN. The address it's supposed to point to (Yahoo) is lost in tranlation.

I appreciate your reply. If anyone else has any other info to share - workarounds, suggestions, anything - that would be great!!

Thanks,
Jen
Polly
Registered: Feb 2 2010
Posts: 1
If I create a hyperlink in Word and convert to a pdf file I lose the links. Any solutions for this?
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Hi Polly,
Ensure that Adobe PDFMaker is configured to create links.
Create the PDF using PDFMaker.


Be well...

Be well...