Ben-and-Nadine

Q: How can I save a Word document as a PDF whilst retaining hyperlinks?

I know that Word can't do it (not on Mac anyway).

 

What other software (ideally free) can do it though?

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Posted on Mar 8, 2014 12:47 AM

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Q: How can I save a Word document as a PDF whilst retaining hyperlinks?

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  • by AussieDJ,

    AussieDJ AussieDJ Mar 8, 2014 1:19 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 4 (1,435 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 1:19 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    Pages from iWork does that fine.

  • by PlotinusVeritas,

    PlotinusVeritas PlotinusVeritas Mar 8, 2014 1:20 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 6 (14,806 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 1:20 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    you are most certainly wrong on this.

     

    Of course Word can save hyperlinks to PDF

     

     

    Word document  >  PRINT > PDF

     

     

    all hyperlinks are saved.

     

    I do it all the time.

  • by Ben-and-Nadine,

    Ben-and-Nadine Ben-and-Nadine Mar 8, 2014 1:36 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 1:36 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas

    Hi PlotinusVeritas,

     

    have you ever actually clicked on the links in the PDF?

    Because when I do it they still look like links but nothing happens when you click on them.

     

    Rgds

    Nadine

  • by Ben-and-Nadine,

    Ben-and-Nadine Ben-and-Nadine Mar 8, 2014 1:41 AM in response to AussieDJ
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 1:41 AM in response to AussieDJ

    Hi AussieDJ,

     

    the problem with Pages is that when I open a Word document it loses some of the formatting such as page breaks, colums - the page looks like a dogs dinner, everything is all over the place.

     

    Is there not a PDF printer that I can download which works?

     

    Rgds

    Nadine

  • by clintonfrombirmingham,

    clintonfrombirmingham clintonfrombirmingham Mar 8, 2014 1:44 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 7 (30,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 8, 2014 1:44 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    You're right - it doesn't work on a Mac: not even with Adobe Acrobat Pro.

     

    That's why I have to use Word for Windows running under Parallels. I'm now running Windows Pro 64-bit and Adobe Acrobat Pro XI and hyperlinks are fuly functional using the Windows version. It's not a bug, it's just that Adobe hasn't invested much effort into support Acrobat/Word on a Mac, I suppose.

     

    If you're willing to make the investment in Windows, Office 2013 (which I'm now using) and Acrobat Pro XI, you can easily save PDF files with active hyperlinks. I notice that "AussieDJ" says that it works in Pages - although I have Pages, I've not tried it as Pages is a joke as far as I'm concerned.

     

    Just one more thing you can accomplish on a Windows machine that you can't do on a Mac...

     

    Clinton

  • by clintonfrombirmingham,

    clintonfrombirmingham clintonfrombirmingham Mar 8, 2014 1:49 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 7 (30,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 8, 2014 1:49 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    I just cehcked this Help page -> https://help.apple.com/pages/mac/5.0/#/tand51db403 - for Pages, but I don't see "Insert>Link" in the newest version of Pages. I seriously doubt that Pages would do what Word/Acrobat will not.

     

    Clinton

  • by Ben-and-Nadine,

    Ben-and-Nadine Ben-and-Nadine Mar 8, 2014 2:01 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 2:01 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

    Pages is no good to me anyway.

     

    Is there not a free PDF printer that works?

  • by clintonfrombirmingham,

    clintonfrombirmingham clintonfrombirmingham Mar 8, 2014 2:08 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 7 (30,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 8, 2014 2:08 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    Is there not a free PDF printer that works?

     

    No. It's a sizeable investment, at that. You would think that it would be fairly simple but you need Windows, Word for Windows and Acrobat Pro to accomplish what you want to do. I've been looking for another solution that would work on a Mac for years now, but could find nothing. If you create a lot of documents with a lot of hyperlinks and want to keep those hyperlinks intact, there's only one way to go about it.

     

    I'm still holding out some hope that there will be an "Office 2014 for Mac" and an update to Acrobat Pro that will allow me to just use OS X, but I'm not holding my breath...

     

    Sorry,

     

    Clinton

  • by Ben-and-Nadine,

    Ben-and-Nadine Ben-and-Nadine Mar 8, 2014 2:11 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 2:11 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

    If you are running Word on Windows you don't need Acrobat pro. Any free downloadable PDF printer would do the job whilst retaining hyperlinks. Why is there no such thing for a Mac?

     

    Sorry Clinton, not your fault. It's just not feasible for me to spend a grand just to be able to convert a word doc into a pdf file.

  • by AussieDJ,

    AussieDJ AussieDJ Mar 8, 2014 2:13 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham
    Level 4 (1,435 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 2:13 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

    I'm using an old version of Pages but it definately has hyperlinks & I just did a test & exported it as a PDF and the hyperlink works.

     

    I know it's not the best word processor, but I can't think of anything else that would be useful to you.

     

    Screen shot 2014-03-08 at 8.10.39 PM.png

  • by clintonfrombirmingham,

    clintonfrombirmingham clintonfrombirmingham Mar 8, 2014 2:22 AM in response to AussieDJ
    Level 7 (30,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 8, 2014 2:22 AM in response to AussieDJ

    AussieDJ,

     

    The "Hyperlink" menu item isn't in version 5.1:

     

    2014-03-08_04-20-02.png

    Maybe the OP could find an older version...somewhere?

     

    But dealing with Pages for a professional document? Nah...

     

    Clinton

  • by AussieDJ,

    AussieDJ AussieDJ Mar 8, 2014 2:27 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham
    Level 4 (1,435 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 2:27 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

    Heh that's weird.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Mar 8, 2014 2:38 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 9 (50,486 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 8, 2014 2:38 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    Ben-and-Nadine wrote:

     

    I know that Word can't do it (not on Mac anyway).

     

    What other software (ideally free) can do it though?

    Libre Office (and Open Office) will save functional hyperlinks in a .pdf file. Both are free and both are significantly better than Pages.

     

    Here's a screenshot, Libre Office, I used the Export to PDF option, all links preserved.

     

    Screen Shot 2014-03-08 at 10.39.44.png

  • by PlotinusVeritas,

    PlotinusVeritas PlotinusVeritas Mar 8, 2014 2:40 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine
    Level 6 (14,806 points)
    Mar 8, 2014 2:40 AM in response to Ben-and-Nadine

    Just tested it again with acrobat pro 11 and latest Word for Mac

     

     

    Web links are present in the PDF

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