In addition to using bookmarks and comments to navigate through a PDF document, Acrobat has another level of sophistication that allows you or your document viewer to navigate interactively through a multicolumn PDF or several PDFs. Tools such as articles, links, and destinations allow you to lead a viewer through a very specific course of linked information, which may or may not be sequential in the document and may not even be limited to one document. You can easily lead a viewer through multiple columns of text and to jump page locations for copy that continues on another page. Or, you can skip around a PDF document or documents to show a viewer a series of related topic elements that have no relationship to the original document organization.
When you want to lead a viewer through multiple columns and/or jump pages in the same document, you can use the Article tool to define a series of sequential locations and views, known as an article. To create an article, follow these steps:
Open a multicolumn multipage document. For this section, I m using an old copy of Design Tools Monthly , which is a four-column multipage document. You can follow along by opening DTM06_03.pdf from the Chapter 9 folder of the companion CD. We will link the News & Rumors columns across two columns and two pages.
Note | The CD also includes a final version of that file, named DTM06_03Commented.pdf , so you can examine the resulting articles. |
Click the Article tool in the Advanced Editing toolbar. Your cursor will become a small cross hair , which you will click and drag to define sections of your article.
Note | If the Advanced Editing toolbar is not visible, select Tools > Advanced Editing > Show Advanced Editing Toolbar. |
Create the article with these steps:
Click and drag over the first part of the News & Rumors section titled Photoshop 8 Won t Run on Mac OS 9. A rectangle labeled 1-1 (indicating the first part of the first article) will appear when you release the mouse. There will be a small + sign in the lower right-hand corner, indicating that this article can be continued .
Click and drag over the QuarkXPress 6 section to create the second portion of the article, which will be labeled 1-2 (indicating the second part of the first article).
Click and drag over the Spam section to create the third portion of the article, which will be labeled 1-3.
Navigate to page 2 (the jump-page finish to the News & Rumors section) to create the jump-page portion of the article.
Click and drag over the extension of the Spam section to create the fourth portion of the article, which will be labeled 1-4.
Click and drag over the X-Ray section to create the fifth and final portion of the article, which will be labeled 1-5.
Hit the Enter key to complete the article. An Article Properties window will appear, with Title, Author, Subject, and Keyword fields.
Fill in the properties and click OK. Your PDF article is now ready for use.
Note | Any words you place in the Keywords field can be used for searching the PDF file as well as for the creation of an article index. ( Chapter 7, PDF Document Management, for more information on searches and indexes.) |
To see whether a document has any articles, click the Articles tab. The articles panel will appear, showing a list of available articles (Figure 9.19).
To begin reading an article, simply double-click the article s icon in the Articles tab. The document panel will immediately jump to an enlarged view of the beginning of the article.
To read the next section of an article, move your mouse over the lower end of the article. The cursor will change to a small hand with a down-arrow . Click the mouse button, and the next block of the article will appear.
To move backward in the article sequence, hold down the Shift key (the cursor becomes a small hand with an up-arrow ) and click. The previous article block will appear.
To skip all the way to the beginning of the article, hold down the Alt/Option key (the cursor becomes a small hand with an arrow pointing upward at a bar ) and click. You will be taken to the initial view of the article.
To view the article rectangles and labels, select the Article tool .
An article can be deleted in several ways, but perhaps the easiest method is as follows :
Select the Article tool .
Click one of the article boxes (if you want to delete just one of the boxes, click that box).
Note | If you delete one article box in the sequence, the article will automatically reflow and renumber the remaining boxes. |
Click the Delete key on your keyboard. A Delete dialog appears.
Click the appropriate button, depending whether you want to delete just the box or the entire article.
You can change the size , shape, and order of the boxes in articles. For all of these actions, first select the Article tool :
To change the size or shape of an article box, click the box, and then drag one of the control handles found around the edge of the article box to resize the box.
To create a new box to extend an article in another location, click the small + sign at the bottom-right corner, and then click in a new area and drag out the new box.
To combine two articles, click the small + sign at the bottom-right corner of a box, and then click the box of an already created article into which you would like the article to flow.
Note | If you add or combine article boxes, the boxes in the resultant article will automatically reflow and renumber. |
Another way to navigate through and between PDF documents and other locations such as web pages is via links. There are two related ways to create links between locations (either within a document or between documents):
The first and simplest way is to simply create links with the Link tool. This solution works fine when you are creating links between pages in a document.
The second method, which also uses the Link tool, is to use destinations. You can think of destinations as secure links between documents. Links with destinations remain secure even if the linked document is changed substantially through the addition or subtraction of pages, while simple links between pages may be lost. In addition to being more secure, destination links can be tracked and managed.
One common use is to create a link to another resource, such as another PDF document, from a specific location on a PDF page:
Open a PDF from which you would like to create a link.
Navigate to the page and location where you would like to place the link.
Note | You will typically find it a bit easier if you zoom in a bit on the location where you would like to create a link. |
Select the Link tool .
Click and drag the Link tool across the area where you would like to place the link.
Note | Make the link area large enough so that it will be easy to locate if you make the link invisible. |
The Create Link dialog appears (Figure 9.20). Click the radio button for the type of link you would like to create, setting any additional options that become active (such as a page number and zoom characteristic to control the view of an Open A Page In This Document link or the URL of an Open A Web Page link). You usually shouldn t choose Custom Link; I ll explain why not in just a moment.
Figure 9.20: Creating a link
Note | If you create a web link, the parent PDF should always have access to the Internet. Also, a fast connection is preferable so that the response to clicking the link is rapid. |
If you chose Open A File, skip to Step 7. For other choices, click OK.
To establish a link to another document, click the Browse button and navigate to the target document to which you would like to link. (I ll be linking to a PDF map of Hawaii, which is included in the Chapter 9 folder on the CD as Hawaii.pdf .) Click the Select button to create the link to that file. The Specify Open Preference window appears (Figure 9.21).
Figure 9.21: Specifying the preference for opening a link
Set your preference for how you would like this linked document to open when the link action is activated, and click OK. The Link Properties dialog will appear (Figure 9.22).
Figure 9.22: Setting a link s action
Click the Actions tab, and examine the Select Action drop-down menu to make sure that Open A File is selected.
Note | If you click the Select Action menu, you will see the wide variety of action choices available. This is the menu that will appear if you select Custom Link in the Create Link dialog back in Step 5.So, you can access this list of action choices without having to select Custom Link, and you can change the nature of the link at this point without having to return to the start of this process. |
Click the Appearance tab (Figure 9.23), and configure the options there for the look and style of your link. For Link Type, choose whether you want the link to be visible or invisible; I often make my links invisible for presentations. For Line Style, I like to use bright colors if I want to draw attention to the location of this link.
Figure 9.23: Setting a link s appearance
Click the Close button to complete the link-creation process.
Your new link will be visible (if you made it so) at the location where you created it.
To try out your new link, click the Hand tool or press H. Move your cursor over the link location. The cursor will turn into a pointing finger, indicating that an active link is under the cursor. Click the link. The action should be executed, and the linked file (in this case, the map of Hawaii) should appear on screen in its own document window.
Note | You can edit a link at any time by selecting the Link tool and double-clicking the link location. |
Destinations are stable links between documents that can be managed. Creating a destination is similar to creating a link, but the first few steps are bit different. In fact, you start by opening the target document to which you would like to link rather than the source document. Here is how to create a stable linked destination.
The first part of creating a destination link is to establish a target file that Acrobat can recognize:
Open a target document to which you would like to create a stable linked destination (here I will open the Hawaii map as the target document).
Click the Destinations tab to activate it, and drag it out to form its own window if you prefer.
Note | Like all the other tabs, the Destinations tab can be dragged out of its document to form its own window ( generally my preference). |
From the Destinations tab s Options menu, select Scan Document.
Note | Whenever you create a new destination, you must scan the document first, even if you know there are currently no destinations assigned to it. Remember that Acrobat tracks and cares for all of its destinations, and this is the way you update Acrobat as to what is currently linked to what. |
Either click the new destination icon or select Options > New Destination.
A new destination will appear in the Destinations list. Type a name for this destination (here, Hawaii Map) and press the Enter or Return key.
You have now tagged the Hawaii map so that Acrobat can recognize it as a destination location.
The second part of creating a destination link is to work through the source document from which the link will be established to the target file designated in the previous process. From here, the procedure is very similar to creating a simple link, with a few variations specific to recognizing a destination link:
Open a PDF from which you would like to create a destination link.
Navigate to the page and location where you would like to place the link.
Select the Link tool .
Click and drag the tool across the area where you would like to place the link.
The Create Link window appears.
Click the Custom Link radio button and click OK. The Link Properties dialog opens.
In the Actions tab, from the Select Action drop-down list, choose an action, and then click Add. For this example, let s use Go To A Page In Another Document.
Note | Here we are going to another document; if you were creating a link in the same document, you would select Go To A Page In This Document. |
In the next dialog, configure the options, which are specific to the action type you chose. The options for the Go To A Page In Another Document dialog (shown in Figure 9.24) are described in the following steps.
Figure 9.24: Choosing a page in another document to link to
Click the Browse button at the top and locate the target document (here Hawaii Map). Click OK to return to the action s dialog.
Select your Open In preference.
Click the Use Named Destination radio button. (You could specify a page number at this point instead of a named destination.)
Click the Browse button at the bottom, and select the destination of your choice. Click OK to return to the action s dialog.
Note | Step 11 specifies a specific named destination within the target file. A target file may have more than one destination, if they have been previously created. |
Click OK in the action dialog (here the Go To A Page In Another Document window). The Link Properties dialog reappears, with the destination page action included in the Actions list (as shown back in Figure 9.22).
Click the Close button to complete the process.
Once established, destination links can be used just like any other link to activate linked resources. Destination links can also be sorted by name or by page using the destination panel s Options menu.