Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Help: Links won't print in PDFs from Word 2011 on Mac

Jun 1, 2012 4:51AM PDT

Hi. I created an e-Book in MS Word 2011 for Mac and only now see that when I create PDFs (either from within Save As/Export or from the Printer Menu) that it ignores the hyperlinks.

I have looked at many sites and it seems the only answer is the crazy expensive Adobe Acrobat X Pro for Mac (for which there is NO trial).

Any advice????

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Perhaps MS Word is not the app for creating e-Books.
Jun 1, 2012 11:08AM PDT

e-books are not just a Word document that is turned into a PDF. There is an e-Book format that applies to them and MS Word does not support it.
Although it is possible to create the source document in Word, there is a fair amount of work to be done before it is ready for running through an app like Calibre to produce the final document.

Alternatively, if you use Apple's Pages, you can create the whole document and export it in e-book format.

If you still want to use Word, take a look at this article:
http://howtowriteshop.loridevoti.com/2010/11/how-to-format-ebook-word/

Good Luck

P

- Collapse -
How an I maintain hyperlinks in PDFs from MS Word 2011
Jun 1, 2012 5:07PM PDT

Hi. Sorry. I should not have used the term e-Book; that is not the root of my question. Let me try to restate my intended question to everyone

I created an MS Word 2011 document that contains hyperlinks. All hyperlinks are lost when I create the PDF.

How can I retain the hyperlinks in a PDF created from MS Word 2011 docs?

Is there a configuration setting? Is the only solution Adobe Acrobat Pro X for Mac? Is there another Mac PDF creator that fixes this)?

FYI, I am using Mac Word 2011 and Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53).

Thank you -- S

- Collapse -
I have been playing with various apps this morning
Jun 1, 2012 11:16PM PDT

because your problem was interesting.

Most of the PDF makers only make what is essentially a picture of the document which means that while all the formatting is correct, the links, fill boxes, auto-calc fields are inert.

But, you luck is in. As I mentioned in my first post, Apple's Pages will produce documents in e-pub format.
It will also allow you to export, not print and then save, in PDF format.
When it does that, it leaves the Hyperlink intact!

Hop on over to the App store, icon in the dock, and get yourself a copy of Pages for $19.99 or zip over to the Apple Store and get a complete copy of iWork, Pages/Numbers/Keynote, for the measly sum of $79
This combination of apps can open/export as, Word/Excel/PowerPoint, so unless you are a slave to MS Office, you can do away with it.

Let us know what you finally do

P

- Collapse -
Thanks for trying...
Jun 2, 2012 3:59AM PDT

I hear what you are saying. I did start with this document in Pages, but I just did not really like it. I changed to MS Word and found a great template, not understanding the implications of this decision. (The document is 16 pages with a LOT of formatting and imbedded images [some with links] and such, think of an image-rich newsletter).

I already have the Pages software and after I realized the challenge with Word and hyperlinks, I tried to import the document into Pages. The results were terrifying. It is not worth the number of hours it would take to get the formatting working in the Pages document. The formatting was just too complex to port into Pages easily. Also, after 5 months working on this, the document is done. It is not worth the 10 hours to get it to look the same in Pages as it already does not in MS Word.

All I really wanted to know from this forum was if there was an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro X for creating PDFs that don't strip the hyperlinks from Word 2011 docs... whether that was a configuration in MS Word or another PDF Writer for Mac.

I will just pay for Adobe Acrobat Pro X for Mac and let it go. I do appreciate your time and effort. Thank you -- Stephanie