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ElizabethGM Calculating status...

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Generate a list of URLs that are hyperlinked in a document?

Feb 26, 2013 1:30 PM

Tags: #hyperlinks_panel

Hi, everyone,

I've done some searching and cannot seem to find an answer to this question:

Is there a way to generate a list of all the URLs that are hyperlinked within an InDesign document? I'm using CS6.

Many thanks.

355 Views 6 Replies Latest reply: ElizabethGM, Feb 27, 2013 7:58 AM

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1. Steve Werner,

Feb 26, 2013 2:51 PM in reply to ElizabethGM

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I think it would have to be scripted. It's not in the InDesign interface.

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2. Ellis home,

Feb 26, 2013 3:25 PM in reply to ElizabethGM

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If you want to check the URLs one at a time you can go to Type > Hyperlinks & Cross-References>Convert URLs to Hyperlinks>Find. But as Steve says, to generate a list might require a script.

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3. ElizabethGM,

Feb 26, 2013 5:06 PM in reply to Ellis home

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Thank you both. I'm really hoping you're wrong! But I appreciate your taking the time to respond.

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4. Joel Cherney,

Feb 26, 2013 5:22 PM in reply to ElizabethGM

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I have a very vague recollection of exporting IDML and staring at the syntax in Notepad++ long enough to do a search for... something. I believe it was hyperlinks. But each URL linked must by default appear in the IDML, right?

<clicks>

Yup! In the XML files for the stories, it just says "Hyperlink 1" or whatever they're called in InDesign. But each hyperlink destination is in desingmap.xml, and named as such. Search for HyperlinkURLDestination. It would take some work, but if you have a text editor that has a GREP implementation, it wouldn't be too hard to chop up the text and generate a list of each unique hyperlink destination.

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5. [Jongware],

Feb 27, 2013 2:06 AM in reply to ElizabethGM

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ElizabethGM wrote:

I'm really hoping you're wrong!

Oooh -- scripts are nothing to fear. Quite the contrary: there are lots of little functions and routines that are only useful to very few people, so Adobe did not add them to InDesign. That's where a script can help you out!

Here is a quick one that gathers all hyperlinks, shows them on-screen, and saves a list of them in your Documents folder. Save as "collectHyperlinks.jsx" in your User Scripts folder, and double-click it in the Scripts panel to run.

var list = []; for (a=0; a<app.activeDocument.hyperlinks.length; a++) { try { d = app.activeDocument.hyperlinks[a].destination.destinationURL; if (d.match(/^http/)) list.push (d); } catch(_) {} } // show the list alert ('All links:\r'+list.join('\r')); // save the list as a file listFile = new File(Folder.myDocuments+"/all_links.txt"); if (listFile.open("w")) { listFile.writeln(list.join('\n')); listFile.close(); listFile.execute(); }

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6. ElizabethGM,

Feb 27, 2013 7:58 AM in reply to [Jongware]

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Oh, you are the BEST. Thank you. It would have taken me quite some time to figure out how to do that.

In an attempt to pay it forward, here's a more detailed description of what I did for anyone who comes to this thread later looking for the same answer:

Download the free software (Adobe ExtendScript) that allows you to write Java scripts (.jsx files) to add to Adobe products:
Windows: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3205
Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=3206&fileID= 3031

Once installed, open the software, copy and paste the script that Jongware kindly provided into the left-most window, save to the following location ...

Adobe InDesign > Scripts > Scripts Panel > Samples > JavaScript

... then open the document that you want to extract the hyperlinks from in InDesign. Open the Scripts Panel (Window > Utilities > Scripts), find the script you wrote (under Application > Samples > Javascript). Double-click on it. Et voila! A list of all the URLs that are hyperlinked in your document.

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