Hyperlinks to (not in) a .pdf document.

April 19, 2007 4:37 PM

Please tell me how to create quick emailable hyperlinks to .pdf documents on a network, so that a group of users can share the documents without clogging inboxes with attachments.

For Microsoft Word or Excel documents, emailing a hyperlink is easy. The Web Toolbar displays the entire document address, which I can copy and paste into an email. Instant hyperlink. As far as I can tell, there is no similar mechanism in Adobe Reader.

I've tried: 1) creating a hyperlink to the .pdf in Word, then pasting the link into an email, 2) typing out the address to create the hyperlink from scratch, and 3) copying the folder location out of Windows Explorer and adding on the file name. These methods are workable, but time consuming.

If it matters, we're using Adobe Reader 6.0 and Windows 2000/2003.

Thanks for any help.

posted by apocry_phil to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Can you visit the PDF in your browser, copy the URL out of the browser's location bar, and e-mail that?
posted by adamrice at 4:48 PM on April 19, 2007

What ar says, drop the pdf into a browser (with a suitable pdf plugin so it displays said pdf in the broswer), then copy the address from there.
posted by signal at 5:18 PM on April 19, 2007

What you need is a utility called Ninotech Path Copy . This allows you to right-click any file and copy the path, it also allows you to copy as UNC to paste as a link. I swear by it.
posted by clarkie666 at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

You can also just type a description of the file, highlight it, then click the hyperlink button on the toolbar of Outlook and then navigate to the network path in the pop-up window.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:03 PM on April 19, 2007

(or just right click your highlighted text and select "hyperlink")
posted by Burhanistan at 8:11 PM on April 19, 2007

I have Windows Explorer set to show the full path in the address bar, making it easy to cut and paste a hyperlink. If the path has spaces, start it with < and end it with >. When you hit enter, it will create a hyperlink out of the text inbetween, spaces included.
posted by kableh at 10:10 PM on April 19, 2007

Use a repository system, like svn or cvs.
posted by about_time at 10:55 PM on April 19, 2007

I have an wee application I made years ago that does the same as (free) Ninotech Path Copy (although without all the extra options). Mine does support multiple selections i.e. copying and pasting UNC paths for more than one file at once. If you need multiple selection (and PathCopy doesn't support that - perhaps it does) then you're more than welcome to it.
posted by NailsTheCat at 8:11 AM on April 20, 2007

Thanks, Nails. I like the Ninotech/Nails options because they seem so easy. My office mates are seriously undermotivated and the fewer clicks, the better. But, our IT environment is so strictly regulated that I'm not sure we'll be able to incorporate a new application. I'm checking on it now and may email you if I get good news.
posted by apocry_phil at 9:09 AM on April 20, 2007