problems with long URLs in PDFs

[Shlomo Perets]

Jakob,

> > co-workers of mine have trouble with some long URLs that break over
> > lines and some may also contain "special" characters such as question
> > marks or parentheses. Please note that we're using Acrobat to create
> > the PDF and that the Generate Tagged PDF option is selected (as
> > documented here: http://www.frameusers.com/2007/09/ second article). ...

When a PDF does not have "real" links, you are relying on Acrobat/Reader 
"Create Links from URLs" preference (Edit > Preferences, General; in 
versions 7 it is called "Automatically detect URLs from text").

With all versions of Acrobat/Reader: when longer web links that are split 
between lines are auto-detected, only the portion present in the first line 
is used, resulting in an incorrect or partial link.

The presence of special characters may also "disturb" the auto-detection, 
and truncate the resulting link. There are some variations as to special 
characters causing the problems, depending on the Acrobat/Reader version 
being used.

To have fully-functional links in all versions of Reader, I recommend 
adding hypertext links in FrameMaker (as Lief suggested), so that a "real" 
links are present in the PDF (and not relying on auto-detected ones).


Shlomo Perets

MicroType * http://www.microtype.com
FrameMaker/Acrobat training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers/Assistants