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• • July 25, 2013 at 12:53 pm #34395
    Tina DeJarld

    Member

    I have an InDesign book that contains an index. When I export to PDF with interactive features turned on, everything is working except the links in the Index which was created using the Index panel. I know it’s the fact that it’s a book that’s the problem because the index links that happen to refer to the same file that contains the index are the only ones that are working. I’m using CS6. I’ve tried using the Interactive choice when exporting to PDF instead of Print, but it did not solve the problem.

    Any ideas? I am ready to either rebuild this project as one InDesign file (it’s under 200 pages), or I’ll have to manually fix the index links in Acrobat. Neither is a good choice.

    Thanks!
    Tina DeJarld

  • July 25, 2013 at 1:38 pm #34396
    Justin Sligh

    Member

    Can you clarify the problem entries?
    – Do they link to the wrong page?
    – Do they appear as a link (i.e., your cursor changes)?
    – Are they plain text?

    You do not need to export as an interactive PDF. You need only select Hyperlinks within the export options.

  • July 25, 2013 at 3:02 pm #34397
    Tina DeJarld

    Member

    They all go the the front cover, and yes the cursor behaves like a link.

    Not sure what you mean by plain text. Yes it’s page numbers generated by the index feature, so it’s text.

    I don’t usually use the interactive PDF option, just trying things! But good to know.

  • July 25, 2013 at 7:00 pm #34401
    Justin Sligh

    Member

    Tina,

    That is interesting. I tried to duplicate this in one of my projects without success.

    If it is creating links for index references in multiple InDesign documents, we know your settings are correctly handling the book.

    I have never had a bad index issue. However, I have had issues with bad bookmarks. It is typically an issue with not being up-to-date. I have had strange behavior with TOCs where recreating TOC style, creating a new frame did not do the trick, and running it out as an IDML did not do the trick. I had to trash the entire InDesign file and recreate it. It was very unusual.

    If you select one of the problem indexes within the InDesign index pallet and select go to selected market icon at the bottom right, does it take you to the correct page or the cover?

  • July 25, 2013 at 9:02 pm #34407
    Tina DeJarld

    Member

    Thanks for taking this up! I’ve had no luck searching the support on the Adobe site.

    Yes all the markers I’ve tried are working correctly from the index panel when I go to selected marker. But it made me think of the fact that when I generate the PDF I generally have all of the documents closed. So I tried generating it with all of the files open so that the index panel shows everything, but unfortunately that did not make a difference. The links are still going to the cover in the PDF.

    This project came to me already set up as a book and I’ve been updating it for the last four years. Since it’s under 200 pages total, it wouldn’t be so bad to put it all into one file. The files I started with were Windows CS4. I haven’t ever exported to IDML. I really don’t want to export each file and reassemble the books, but I guess it might be better than merging everything into one file.

  • July 26, 2013 at 4:07 pm #34411
    Tina DeJarld

    Member

    Justin Sligh wrote:

    Tina,

    I love a good puzzle. If I were in your shoes, I would give the following a try:

    1. Create a three or four fresh indesign documents. Book them and create a simple index. Export and see if you still have those issues. If not, than it is solely within your project.

    2. Do you have a TOC? If so, check those links work correctly?

    3. Generate the index within one of the other documents. Export and see if it only links to markers in that document only. If so, consider trashing the book (indb). Those are easy to recreate without much work. If the new index works fine, consider the original InDesign document the index resides in.

    You may want to export as an IDML file*, open, and save back over the original Indesign document (obviously make backups of everything first).

    *In regard to IDML. Exporting each file as an IDML, opening them, saving them back out as an InDesign file shouldn’t take too much time. Creating a new Indesign book and dropping the files back in is easy. If we are talking about 1-10 InDesign documents. It is likely a 5 minute process.

    Hi Justin,

    You pointed me the right direction & it’s now fixed! Thank you!!!!

    I tried recreating the book file: did not fix it.

    So I tried generating the index in one of the other book files and the links from the resulting PDF DID work correctly. So I knew it was the actual InDesign file that contained the index causing the problem. I tried exporting to IDML, opening back up & saving over the offending file, but that did not fix it.

    So I created a fresh new InDesign file, copied the content back in and replaced the file in the book document. Now the index links work correctly in the PDF.

    Thank you very much! I really appreciate your help. I did not suspect a damaged file. Nothing else was working incorrectly.

    Tina

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