Hypelinks functionality // Kepping the hyperlink target FIXED when manipulate pages

[Tanya Y.]

Hi there,

I am an interactive pdf's creator (such as digital planners, journals etc.) and have been testing to transfer from InDesign to Affinity Pub.

The hyperlinking functionality is one of the most important for my products and I find the following states as disadvantages that are really making my work more difficult and extremely time consuming (for instance I am woking with over 800 pages in a file with over 5000 hyperlink to pages in total).Here are weaknesses I've experience and some proposals, based on my previous experience with other softwares used for creating products like mine:

1) every time when right-click on an already hyperlinked object, I see only the "Insert Hyperlink" option as it has never been linked before. No option to Change and/or Delete the existing Hyperlink. Adding this in the context menu would be very helpful.

2) hyperlink to a certain page is not fixed. E.g.: If I hyperlink an object/text to a Page 10 and change its order (as result of moving it to another place or add/delete other pages, then it becomes Page 15) the link is still remaining active for the "new" Page 10 and to the hyperlinked one. Making the hyperlink "fixed" to the page and being unchangeable despite the added/deleted pages or changed position would eliminate the need to repair all links after adding just one page in the document. I do not understand why the target page is not fixed...

3)this one is not "expected" feature but I assume colleagues who are creating digital interactive products would agree it would help us (it saved me lots of time in other softwares)=> Lets say we have a "set" of 11 pages with page numbers from 10 to 21. The first one contains 10 object which are respectively hyperlinked to the rest 10 pages. When selecting and duplicating the whole set of 11 pages after page 100, at the current version of the Affinity Pub, they would keep the hyperlinks to the pages Nr. 11-21. My proposal is to make the hyperlink adaptive in this case => i.a. when pasting the pages after p.100 to adapt the hyperlink respectively to pages from 101 to 111.                                                                                 

4)Last but not least - when duplicating a master page (because I need just tiny change in the design) and afterwards add hyperlinks, they are applied both to the original and the duplicated page. This make me create every single master page from scratch.

I really like Affinity softwares (currently trying both Designer and Photo as substitutes to the PS and Ai) and would be so so happy if I may continue working with Affinity Pub, but not on the price to spend hours and hours more on the same project. Thank you for giving opportunity to give you feedback. In case you find my comments reasonable, please do not hesitate to contact me.

With Kind regards,

Tanya.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Tanya Y. said:

2) hyperlink to a certain page is not fixed. E.g.: If I hyperlink an object/text to a Page 10 and change its order (as result of moving it to another place or add/delete other pages, then it becomes Page 15) the link is still remaining active for the "new" Page 10 and to the hyperlinked one. Making the hyperlink "fixed" to the page and being unchangeable despite the added/deleted pages or changed position would eliminate the need to repair all links after adding just one page in the document. I do not understand why the target page is not fixed...

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

That one sounds like you are really wanting to link to some object (text, image, etc.) that is on the page. And in that case you should insert an Anchor at that object, and then when you insert the hyperlink you direct it to the anchor, not to the page. The issue then is that you cannot say something like "see xyz on page 10". You can say "see xyz" where "xyz" is the link to the anchor, but you can't give the page number.

To get a page number mentioned in the text, and have it adjust, you need to use a cross-reference function, and that function is very primitive right now in Publisher. It can be done, but each one takes a pair of small linked Text Frames, inserted into your existing text. And that's very cumbersome if you have many references like that.

1 hour ago, Tanya Y. said:

4)Last but not least - when duplicating a master page (because I need just tiny change in the design) and afterwards add hyperlinks, they are applied both to the original and the duplicated page. This make me create every single master page from scratch.

Sorry; I don't understand that one.

[Tanya Y.]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

That one sounds like you are really wanting to link to some object (text, image, etc.) that is on the page. And in that case you should insert an Anchor at that object, and then when you insert the hyperlink you direct it to the anchor, not to the page. The issue then is that you cannot say something like "see xyz on page 10". You can say "see xyz" where "xyz" is the link to the anchor, but you can't give the page number.

To get a page number mentioned in the text, and have it adjust, you need to use a cross-reference function, and that function is very primitive right now in Publisher. It can be done, but each one takes a pair of small linked Text Frames, inserted into your existing text. And that's very cumbersome if you have many references like that.

Sorry; I don't understand that one.

Hello Walt and thank you for the welcome greetings.

In regards of point 2), I do mean hyperlink to page (not an anchor to a certain text or object) and cross-referencing (if I understand it correct in the context of Affinity) would not work for this issue.

I am looking for a feature that would really keep the link to the page regardless of it's number and order after one time is set. In the other softwares I've been using, this is available by default and it really saves lots of time and "pain" if you suddenly realise that one more page should be inserted / deleted  

 

Page numbering I do not need to be inserted at that type of products.

 

To point 4) - first accept my apologise as obviously English is not my native language  What I meant - when I have to design two or more master pages, most of the time they are pretty similar and I duplicate the first master multiple times. When I insert hyperlink to a page in any of the master pages, this hyperlink does apply not only to the pages based on this master, but also on the masters that were duplicated from it. It seems they are linked and not recognised as different objects. I hope my explanation make sense now  I am working already 6hrs in the Affinity pub after my 9to5 main job and my brain is tired  

Edited July 2, 2021 by Tanya Y.

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, Tanya Y. said:

I am looking for a feature that would really keep the link to the page regardless of it's number and order after one time is set. In the other softwares I've been using, this is available by default and it really saves lots of time and "pain" if you suddenly realise that one more page should be inserted / deleted  

Make a transparent rectangle on the page and link to the transparent rectangle. If you move the page the transparent object will still be linked regardless of what page it winds up on.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Tanya Y. said:

I am looking for a feature that would really keep the link to the page regardless of it's number and order after one time is set. In the other softwares I've been using, this is available by default and it really saves lots of time and "pain" if you suddenly realise that one more page should be inserted / deleted  

Thanks for the clarification. Also, I had not realized that page-based hyperlinks worked that way. I think that (for now, at least, something like @Old Bruce's approach is all you can do. Perhaps someday Publisher will get the function you want.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Tanya Y. said:

What I meant - when I have to design two or more master pages, most of the time they are pretty similar and I duplicate the first master multiple times. When I insert hyperlink to a page in any of the master pages, this hyperlink does apply not only to the pages based on this master, but also on the masters that were duplicated from it. It seems they are linked and not recognised as different objects. I hope my explanation make sense now  

Thanks. I think I understand what you're saying, but if you are actually making duplicates of a Master, then they should be fully separate after that, and nothing you do on one copy should affect the others. I would want to see a sample document that works that way, and if it does work as you describe and you have not constructed it incorrectly, then I think you've found a bug that should be reported.

[Tanya Y.]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks for the clarification. Also, I had not realized that page-based hyperlinks worked that way. I think that (for now, at least, something like @Old Bruce's approach is all you can do. Perhaps someday Publisher will get the function you want.

Thanks, Walt! I will check and try that  Highly appreciate your help!

[Tanya Y.]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks. I think I understand what you're saying, but if you are actually making duplicates of a Master, then they should be fully separate after that, and nothing you do on one copy should affect the others. I would want to see a sample document that works that way, and if it does work as you describe and you have not constructed it incorrectly, then I think you've found a bug that should be reported.

Let me prepare a sample file with example and I will share it with you.

[Tanya Y.]

20 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Make a transparent rectangle on the page and link to the transparent rectangle. If you move the page the transparent object will still be linked regardless of what page it winds up on.

Hi Bruce,

thank you for the tip, I will try to work in this way at the moment, but still hope someday there will be improvement in the hyperlinking function.  There are few hyperlinking options that are extremely time consuming and help a lot for people like me, who create interactive stationery ❤️  

I just have a question - when I use a full-page transparent rectangle, will the page zoom when clicking on the hyperlinked object or I will be directed to the full page? TIA

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Tanya Y. said:

I just have a question - when I use a full-page transparent rectangle, will the page zoom when clicking on the hyperlinked object or I will be directed to the full page? TIA

In my experience it is the page.

[Tanya Y.]

30 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

In my experience it is the page.

Thank you!

[Melila]

On 7/2/2021 at 5:29 PM, Tanya Y. said:

1) every time when right-click on an already hyperlinked object, I see only the "Insert Hyperlink" option as it has never been linked before. No option to Change and/or Delete the existing Hyperlink. Adding this in the context menu would be very helpful.

2) hyperlink to a certain page is not fixed. E.g.: If I hyperlink an object/text to a Page 10 and change its order (as result of moving it to another place or add/delete other pages, then it becomes Page 15) the link is still remaining active for the "new" Page 10 and to the hyperlinked one. Making the hyperlink "fixed" to the page and being unchangeable despite the added/deleted pages or changed position would eliminate the need to repair all links after adding just one page in the document. I do not understand why the target page is not fixed...                                                                          

4)Last but not least - when duplicating a master page (because I need just tiny change in the design) and afterwards add hyperlinks, they are applied both to the original and the duplicated page. This make me create every single master page from scratch.

Thank you for creating this post @Tanya Y. Good questions. It would be really helpful it that could be fixed, especially nr 1 and 2. I haven't been working that much yet with hyperlinks, just done some testing. I'm a new digital planner creator and still in the design process. I did buy Affinity Publisher (+the other 2) to create my planners. 

Another thing that I find missing, is that when you select your text or object that has a hyperlink, you can't see in the hyperlink panel or on the page (when you're not in preview mode) if it had been hyperlinked. You can only check by right-clicking and check under interactive. But looking at 1) I see it that this doesn't always work.. 

On 7/3/2021 at 12:36 AM, Old Bruce said:

Make a transparent rectangle on the page and link to the transparent rectangle. If you move the page the transparent object will still be linked regardless of what page it winds up on.

Thank you for this option @Old Bruce Would like to try this. But how do you link to a transparent rectangle? 

[Old Bruce]

Use the rectangle tool and draw it out, then change the fill and the stroke to transparent with the no fill option in the colour panel.

[Melila]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Use the rectangle tool and draw it out, then change the fill and the stroke to transparent with the no fill option in the colour panel.

😄 Yeah I got that part. I guess I misunderstood the linking.. 
So, it's actually linking 'from' the rectangle, to the page. I thought you meant linking to a rectangle instead of to a page.

[Old Bruce]

No it is a link from somewhere else  in the document to the transparent rectangle. 

This is a special case where the text that was linked to was moving to a different page due to editing. The original page was what was wanted for the link.

Hyper links have a Page destination that may work better for you.

[Melila]

Thank you for clarifying! @Old Bruce