Links within Acrobat, over and over again.

April 17, 2016 5:35 PM

I have a 50+ page PDF, originally created in Word 10. Pages 2-45 need to have two icons (in the same spot on the page), and each of those icons plus their text below needs to link within the pdf, to destinations I've already defined. It's the same two destinations each time. I have this all set up on page 2. How can I copy it to pages 3-45?

When I copy and paste these four elements, the links get lost*. Links applied in Word before conversion don't stick to the icons (although they do stick to the text).

Headers seem to only allow text, and watermarks won't allow multiple links.

Is there a way to do this without having to recreate each link on 40+ pages? There must be an easier way! They absolutely do have to be these exact icons, with specific text underneath. Acrobat Standard DC, Windows 10, and Office 2010.

*and the pictures/text offset themselves down and to the right, which is annoying, but oh well.

posted by mgar to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

I can try it in Acrobat Professional and see what the behavior is. How soon do you need it? Stay tuned...
posted by rw at 9:28 PM on April 17, 2016

Also, I wonder if you've tried adding the icon and link to the page template in Word. That's the first thing I'd try.
posted by rw at 9:34 PM on April 17, 2016

Response by poster: I haven't tried putting it into the template in Word, that's definitely something to try; it would at least save me from re-placing the text even if it doesn't make the links stick to the icons.

And if you're able to try it and get it to work in Professional I'd be very interested to hear. I went through and set it up the hard way for tomorrow's meeting already but I'd like to be ready for the next time I need to add something to most-but-not-all pages.
posted by mgar at 10:00 PM on April 17, 2016

Oh god, I remember struggling with this in a tediously long and linked doc a few years back. I think there's an setting when you save as from the word doc under options that changes the security to allow links (so, save as PDF - > options).
posted by toomanycurls at 11:47 PM on April 17, 2016

Best answer: I just did this in Word 2013. (Should be similar in at least 2010). My process:
1. Insert Bookmark at the location you want to link to, via Insert ->Bookmark
2. Get icon
3. Insert icon and text into Word Header, by double-clicking the Header area at the top of the page.
4. Select the icon and the text. Do Insert -> Hyperlink and on the left side of the dialog, choose Place in this Document. Select the Bookmark you created in Step 1.
5. Use Word's Save As...PDF to save the PDF.

Links worked fine in the PDF.

The one issue I had was that it put a blue underline under the icon. I didn't take the time to figure out whether I could get rid of that. I'll leave that part to you!
posted by cnc at 9:30 AM on April 18, 2016

Response by poster: So close! Putting the icons + text in the header at least made them show up in the same place on every page, but the links didn't follow! No blue underline, though. I do have "Convert Word Bookmarks" checked, both in the Save As... dialogue options and in the Create PDF Preference tab. So it should be working, it just isn't.
posted by mgar at 5:59 PM on April 18, 2016

Best answer: From Adobe Forums [repasting here in case you can't access it]:

Use a button!

1. Open "Tool", then "Interactive Objects"
2. Place your button where you want it on the page. Name it using the popup box provided.
3. Click "Add Button", click on "Properties", go to the "Actions" tab, set action to return to desired page, click enter
4. Place your button where you want it on the page. Name it using the popup box provided.
5. Click off the box to set it on the page.
6. Click on box, then right click to pop up Properties Box
7. Scroll down to "Duplicate Across Pages", click on it and follow instructions from there.

Just tried it myself in Acrobat and the only difference was:

6. Click on box, then right click to access dropdown menu.
7. Scroll down to "Duplicate Across Pages", click on it and follow instructions from there.

The difference might be that I'm on a Mac.
posted by unliteral at 6:37 PM on April 18, 2016

Response by poster: That did it! Although in my version, Step 1 was go to Tools|Prepare Form, which is not where I would have looked in a million years.

Here's the Help article that I finally found with new keywords:
Setting Action Buttons in PDF Forms

In the button Properties, Options allows me to insert my special icon there, and position the text below it with no further futzing, Duplicate Across Pages works, and my already-defined Bookmarks work and stay attached.

Phew! Thanks everybody!
posted by mgar at 7:43 PM on April 18, 2016