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Creating, Editing & Exporting PDFs

RLS

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Markup Language for Hyperlinks?

May 11, 2012 12:44 PM

Tags: #pdf #adobe #link #coldfusion #language #hyperlinks #markup

My ultimate goal is to be able to use hyperlinks within a ColdFusion-generated PDF document. PDF doesn't seem to want to recognize standard HTML internal hyperlinks unless the name of the document is part of the hyperlink.

That is, <a name="section1">TITLE OF SECTION ONE</a> and elsewhere <a href="#section1">Go To Section 1</a> does not work.

Now, <a name="section1">TITLE OF SECTION ONE</a> and elsewhere <a href="mydoc.pdf#section1">Go To Section 1</a> wants to work, if I saved the PDF as "mydoc.pdf" AND have access to the actual location where it was saved, but I have no idea what someone is going to save the document as (these are created dynamically) so I need an internal reference name -- and much searching and worn out fingertips yielded nada.

10 years ago I was doing PDF document from absolute scratch, but now I cannot find any of those early documents or the documentation to tell me what the internal codes or markup language references are to try those within the ColdFusion cfdocument tags are. I have seen a reference to <link> and to <reference> but no documentation for them can be found (by me).

Where can I find documenation on the Adobe PDF markup language, OR does someone know the generic internal reference "trick" to get PDF to know I am looking for a location within the very document I am in at the moment?

Thank you!

RLS

430 Views 2 Replies Latest reply: RLS, May 11, 2012 2:21 PM

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1. CtDave,

May 11, 2012 1:35 PM in reply to RLS

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Correct, PDF does not recognize HTML link markup. An expect outcome as PDF is very much a different "technology" than is HTML.

A PDF "Link" may have many different "actions" associated with it.
One of these is navigating from one location within a PDF to another location have the "target" that is a "Destination".
A Destination can be set manually with Acrobat.
Some authoring applications (such as FrameMaker) can establish the "destinations" and from-to links in the authoring file(s) and these are present in the output PDF.

Using Acrobat's "web capture" facility you might use it on HTML output from ColdFusion to see what you get in a PDF.

Other "navigate within PDF" or to other PDFs is possible through actions associated with PDF Bookmarks.

As to "markup" in PDF, this is the markup provided by a Tagged PDF.
The discussion of this is in Section 14 of ISO 32000-1.
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/p df/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf

While the conceptual model of Tagged PDF shares characteristics of HTML or XML the implementation is unique to PDF.

A good starting point for learning about PDF navigation via links, bookmarks, etc. is the online Acrobat Help.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/index.html

Be well...

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2. RLS,

May 11, 2012 2:21 PM in reply to CtDave

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CtDave,

Thank you for the reply and for the manual you linked to.

Sorry, I thought by what I said I'd established myself as "not a noob" when it comes to PDF; I just couldn't find the manual or other reference documentation. Perhaps you posted this information to help the next guy who stumbles upon this conversation, which is nice of you.

Using Web Capture and the other outside-of-ColdFusion tools and non-PDF markup is not where I, personally, want to go with this. It needs to be a self-contained application, but you didn't know that from my comments, sorry.

What I was looking for was not found in the manual you provided. I'll keep looking and perhaps can find my old documentation. Appreciate your input very much!

Thanks again!

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