PDF XChange Forum

Is there a way to create an external URL that will go to a specific point on a specific page for an online PDF? I can do a URL link TO the specific page, but I want the page to center on a specific point, depending on the link used to access the PDF.

I have a PDF brochure of local businesses with 15 to 20 business listings on many of the 32 pages (the rest are ads that I may link as well). I also have an interactive map of the town on our domain and the location of those businesses are marked by numbers that correspond to business identification numbers within the PDF brochure. I have a pop-up on hover that gives details about the business when you mouse over those numbers on the map, and a link to the business web site (if they have one), but I also want to add a link to the specific page and location for that businesses info within the PDF.

Depending on the device used and the interface settings, you may see an entire page at once, or only a part of a page and then you have to scroll to see the rest, so I want to make sure the link to the business within the PDF centers on the screen when a link is chosen.

Would I have to create Form components for each business listing within the PDF, like a named Text Field to accomplish this? And if so, how do I create my URL link to open that page and center on that business listing?

Yes, it may be overkill, but I'd rather have too much access to information than not enough. Information drives revenue.

Thanks for any help!

Hello insohmniac,
While it is possible to accomplish this, it depends entirely on the browser the user has in place, Its capabilities, and it settings.
Some browsers will only read links to a specific page, while others will also handle destinations. From a settings perspective, most browsers will "remember" the last view of a document in the browser cache, and thus will only properly read destination links the first time that user ever opens that specific PDF. This can usually be changed in the browsers cache settings, but as a general rule some of them have this setup by default.

Now that I have gone over those "minor" caveats of the idea, lets get to how you would go about doing this!

1. Open your document in the Editor
2. Find a page you wish to create a link to, adjust your zoom so that the top left corner of the viewing area lines up with the view you wish to have.
3. Open the Named destinations pane: - You may wish to double check that "use inherited zoom" is enabled from the options dropdown in this pane.

4. Click the New Destination... button: 5. Set a name for your destination 6. When creating any links to this document, add #[destination name] to the link, like so: I hope this helps!

Thank you for the response! I only just noticed your feedback because I didn't get a notification, so my apologies for the late reply.

I understand the browser settings issue, but making it work for those whose settings allow it will be fine by me. Otherwise, the URL link will get them close enough, at least to the proper page.

Thanks again for your very detailed response!

So, here's a new question since I started using this feature a bit ago:

Is there a limitation of the number of 'Named Destinations' I can have? I have 84 I need to create, and when I got to 48, it stopped allowing me to make new ones. So I saved the file, closed it, then re-opened in case it was a cache issue, and suddenly there are only 3 'Named Destinations' listed. I added a 4th, saved the file, closed it, re-opened, and again, only 3 are listed.

Is this the way it's supposed to be, or is this a bug?

Thanks.

So I found a workaround:

If I create Bookmarks then use the 'Export to Named Destination' feature, THEN I can create as many 'Named Destinations' as I'd like and I'm not limited to just 3. (So far. I haven't tried all 84, so we'll see if I run into an issue with that great a number. If so, I'll be back to post about whatever limitation I run into there.)

Hello Insohmniac,

There should not be any achievable limits on the amount of named destinations you can add to a single document (84 will certainly be fine), I have reproduced this and am reporting it to the Dev team currently as this appears to be a bug.
I am glad that you have a workaround in the meantime however, hopefully we can resolve this quickly.

Kind regards,

WooHoo! My first Bug!

Thanks, Daniel. And FYI, with the Bookmarks-to-Named Destinations, I did all 84, then added another 36, and no limitation issues arose.

I think my original maxing at 48 with the Named Destinations was a system cache issue and not app related. I had Corel PhotoPaint and Draw X8 open and working on large files, working in Xchange Editor, while surfing the web and emailing on my little HP Elite X2 G1 with 4GB memory, so I was definitely putting my little Lap-let through its paces. Though even with refreshed system caching the limit of 3 still remains, so that's definitely a bug.

Thanks again!

Hi Insohmniac,

It certainly is, Ive done some more testing here, and it seems that new bookmarks are not added during a normal save currently, however doing a "save as" and overwriting the original works as expected. So that 3 limit you are seeing is because the first time you saved the document after adding destinations, there were only those 3 destinations in place. If for example, the first time you saved a document there were 15 destinations, it would likely revert to show those 15. Nonetheless, this is still certainly an issue and we will be resolving this in a future build.

I cannot speak for when exactly it will be resolved, but we are now aware of it, and working on a resolution.

Kind regards,

Fixed in build 322