Linking to non-Frame files

[Shlomo Perets]

Lisa,

You wrote:

>I'm working on a Frame (7.0, Macintosh) document that will be delivered as 
>a .pdf.  The client wants the final .pdf file to contain links not only to 
>other places within the book, but to images and files that are not part of 
>the book.  I've been playing with the hypertext link feature, but it 
>appears to only allow linking to other Frame documents.
>
>Is there a way to include in Frame a link that will open an outside image 
>or .pdf file when clicked?  I don't want to include the whole file, just a 
>pointer that users can click on to open the additional information.

You can establish a link to a file (carried over as a link in a PDF file), 
by using the "message openfile filename" hypertext marker (no quotes, 
filename replaced with the specific file to be launched by the PDF link). 
The linked file may of any file type that can be handled in the end-user 
system, and it is displayed using the associated application. The linked 
item may also be a PDF (in which case it opens in Acrobat/Reader at the 
default opening page; useful when you want to link to PDFs authored with 
other tools).

When links in PDFs launch a non-PDF file, an Acrobat/Reader security 
message is displayed (can be turned off for the current session).

Acrobat does not have a separate mechanism to open outside images, but 
using the multimedia features of Acrobat/Reader 6 (and later versions) it 
is possible to display linked JPEG images in a floating window (no 
automatic security messages).

A sample PDF with linked JPEG screen captures, displayed in a floating 
window, is available at: 
http://www.microtype.com/showcase/MultimediaAsst/LinkedJPEG.pdf (76K, 
Acrobat/Reader 6 or higher required)


Shlomo Perets

MicroType, http://www.microtype.com
Training, consulting & add-ons: FrameMaker, Structured FM and Acrobat