We have some useful tips relating to PDF Files. Many thanks to Mike Unwalla from TechScribe who explains who to create coloured hyperlinks in an index in a PDF file. Also, thanks to my colleague, Pratik Kothari from Quadriga, who explained how to listen a PDF file. Editor.

Mike Unwalla: Creating coloured hyperlinks in an index in a PDF file

PDF files often contain hyperlinks, and often, these are highlighted in some way to indicate to readers that text is a clickable link. Typically, clickable text is coloured blue, and sometimes, it is underlined.

Many authors create PDF files using Word as the source document. Most Word-to-PDF converters create a hyperlink in the PDF file if a hyperlink exists in the Word document. Unfortunately, Word does not create hyperlinked cross-references in an index, so no PDF creation tool can directly generate a hyperlinked index.

A very slow way of creating hyperlinks in the PDF file would be to use the Link tool in Acrobat. A much faster way is to use the Sonar Bookends Activate plug-in for Acrobat. Amongst other things, this creates hyperlinks for page numbers in indexes in PDF files.

But how do we get the colour into the hyperlinks in the index in the PDF file? The plug-in does not change the colour of new hyperlinks, and it does not create visible rectangles for the hyperlinks. You could change the colour of the hyperlinks using the TouchUp Text tool or you could create visible rectangles using the Link tool, but this is not practical because it takes too long. (Possibly, the task could be automated using an Acrobat macro, but I do not know of one that is available in the public domain.)

The solution at TechScribe is to:

1. Use a macro in Word to change the colour of locators in the index.

2. Generate the PDF using Adobe Acrobat.

3. Use Sonar Bookends Activate to create the hyperlinks

The article on www.techscribe.co.uk/ta/colour-hyperlink-pdf-index.htm gives full details (including the macro code).

Pratik Kothari: Listening to PDF Files

Did you know?

You can listen to any PDF instead of reading with Adobe Reader 7.0 or 6.0, and the short cut is:

Ctrl+shift+b - to hear the entire Document

Ctrl+shift+v - to hear the page

Ctrl+shift+c - to resume

Ctrl+shift+e - to stop

Open any PDF File and test.... unbelievable!