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publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

Patch
Grafter
Posts: 122
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

Hi,
I am having a few problems attempting to create a pdf file from a publisher document on behalf of a client. I'm using publisher 2007 on windows XP, and adobe acrobat pro 8.
I can create the pdf fine by "printing" the document as a pdf... but any long web links (of which there are quite a few) get broken when there is a line-break, meaning we have to manually go in and edit each link in the pdf once the file is created.
However when I use the adobePDF tool in it's own toolbar, or in the menu at the top of publisher, the process fails. It looks like it is all going smoothly, but at the final stage publisher hangs, and each time I try and switch to it as the active window, nothin happens. In the end I have to close publisher using the task manager.
While publisher is in this state, trying to use alt and tab to swith to it fails as well, infact it does not even appear and an active application.
Unfortunately the adobe forums are off line at the moment, and I can not find much of any help on the microsoft forum, so I thought I would see if anyone here might be abel to shed any light on this.
Really appreciate any suggestions!
Patch
8 REPLIES 8
Denzil
Grafter
Posts: 1,733
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

You could try a third party pdf creator such as CutePDF or PDF995. They pretend to be a printer, so you Print... select the app as the printer and give it a filename and location.
Patch
Grafter
Posts: 122
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

I'll see if I can install this on one of our other computers to test it, but certainly printing to a pdf file using adobe acrobat does not work.
incase it helps...
The problem we had with "printing" to a pdf file with acrobat, is that if you have a long url, for example http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2389.2006.00845.x then it splits over a few lines.
Unfortunately in this document we have a 3 column layout, so quite narrow columns, and the url appears across 3 lines, as below
http://www.blackwell-
synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-
2389.2006.00845.x
In the pdf file, as the first line is not interpreted as a link, it does not work at all
Another similar examples is
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi
-bin/abstract/114283521/ABSTRACT
When you click on the link, the first line works as a link to http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi which fails, while the second line is ignored as link.
Which is rather frustrating to say the least.
Thanks for the suggestion though. I'll let you know how we get on.
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

At a pinch would it help (and look better) to shorten the URL's by going here?  http://tinyurl.com/
Peter_Vaughan
Grafter
Posts: 14,469
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

Or is it not possible to change it to a text hyperlink i.e. have a word or phrase which when clicked takes you to the relevant URL?
That would certainly look better than a long link anyway.
[edit to add]
Just tried in publisher 2003 and acrobat 8. Created some text, right clicked on it and added a hyperlink. The resulting pdf created just shows the original text underlined as a clickable link.
Also with this method you can have a long sentence wrapped on multiple lines and assign a hyperlink to the whole sentence.
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

Quote from: God
At a pinch would it help (and look better) to shorten the URL's by going here?  http://tinyurl.com/

Or even Plusnet's own QuickLink - I don't see this being referred to very often - do many people use it?
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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Patch
Grafter
Posts: 122
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

@Peter Vaughan
You are right, a hyperlink hidden under words would look much better, and work fine for people viewing the document on screen.
The problem is the client wants the pdf to be all things to all people. For example some users may download the pdf, and print it out, then pass it round to their colleagues. If they do this then unfortunaltely a clickable phrase option will not work.
@God
Also a number of the links are providing sources of information for news items, and so the client feels that it is useful for users to see at least enough of the url to allow people to see the organisation that was the source of the information, so to be able to judge it's value.
@jelv
I didn't even know plus net offered this, thanks for the extra info.
Perhaps I will try and persuade the client that we could get away with just showing the domain of the site, and then putting the detail into the link.
But I know he will question why the software does not do what he wants it to....
Thanks for all the ideas.
Patch
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

Point taken about what site you are being redirected to. www.tinyurl.com also offer a short link that previews the destination URL and lets you decide if you wish to follow it.
Patch
Grafter
Posts: 122
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: publisher and adobe pdf - any ideas

I was about to suggest the combination of both to the client, when further investigation revealed the links that were failing were the internal document links in the table of contents.
At least now we know what is causing the problem, we can bypass it.
Thanks for all the tips and suggestions