Importing InDesign IDML File Loses Hyperlinks

[John S.]

Hello,

I'm testing out Affinity Publisher to see if it will work with a document I've been working on back and forth with my designer in Adobe InDesign (I've been using the month-to-month subscription while we've been working). But I don't want to continue subscribing to Adobe, just so I can (very occasionally) make small edits to the document moving forward. So i exported the document from InDesign as an IDML file and have been testing the Publisher Trial to see if it will be an acceptable replacement.

The IDML file opens in Publisher fine, and the layout all looks good. But it seems like the interactive hyperlinks (both internal links from the TOC and any external links) are lost in translation. There's just no indication that they're there in the Publisher UI... and exporting to a PDF (digital... and confirming that "Hyperlinks" are enabled in the "More..." settings) confirms that they're not there.

Is this normal behavior (and I just need to re-create the hyperlinks in Publisher)? Or is there something special I need to do to get this to work correctly?

Thanks for any input/assistance!

[Komatös]

Hi, @John S.

There are some functions that cannot be taken over from the IDML file; these include the hyperlinks, which have to be set manually.

To do this, mark the text that is to act as a hyperlink and click on the marked text with the right mouse button.
Select Interactive -> Insert Hyperlink from the drop-down menu. 

 

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, Komatös said:

There are some functions that cannot be taken over from the IDML file; these include the hyperlinks, which have to be set manually.

I am a bit surprised at that, and I find only one mention of it previously. I would have expected more discussion by now, or an indication whether this is a bug or something that is simply not supported at the moment.

[LondonSquirrel]

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I am a bit surprised at that, and I find only one mention of it previously. I would have expected more discussion by now, or an indication whether this is a bug or something that is simply not supported at the moment.

I've just tested this with an idml file which has hyperlinks to web sites and also to elsewhere in the document. The paragraph or character styles have been carried over (with some minor changes), but the Hyperlinks panel is devoid of links of any kind. In this screen shot, the green and the blue underlines are Character Styles (they are not underlines in InDesign, they are highlights, but that's not relevant here). 

I really can't remember if this worked before. This is one my RTL documents, so I haven't brought it into APub for a long time for reasons you well know. 

 

[Dan C]

Hi @John S.,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

I can confirm that currently Affinitys IDML import doesn't support Hyperlinks (specifically the source/destination), however the style will be retained as best possible.

As I understand it, this is a feature we hope to include support for in the future.

I hope this clears things up!

[John S.]

On 4/30/2022 at 11:49 PM, Komatös said:

Hi, @John S.

There are some functions that cannot be taken over from the IDML file; these include the hyperlinks, which have to be set manually.

To do this, mark the text that is to act as a hyperlink and click on the marked text with the right mouse button.
Select Interactive -> Insert Hyperlink from the drop-down menu. 

 

Thanks so much, @Komatös! Glad to know it's not something I'm doing wrong. Re-creating the handful of links isn't any big deal at all. Thanks!

[John S.]

On 5/1/2022 at 5:46 AM, LondonSquirrel said:

I've just tested this with an idml file which has hyperlinks to web sites and also to elsewhere in the document. The paragraph or character styles have been carried over (with some minor changes), but the Hyperlinks panel is devoid of links of any kind. In this screen shot, the green and the blue underlines are Character Styles (they are not underlines in InDesign, they are highlights, but that's not relevant here). 

I really can't remember if this worked before. This is one my RTL documents, so I haven't brought it into APub for a long time for reasons you well know. 

 

Thanks for doing that testing to confirm, @LondonSquirrel! Really appreciate it!

[John S.]

On 5/3/2022 at 5:41 AM, Dan C said:

Hi @John S.,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

I can confirm that currently Affinitys IDML import doesn't support Hyperlinks (specifically the source/destination), however the style will be retained as best possible.

As I understand it, this is a feature we hope to include support for in the future.

I hope this clears things up!

Thanks for chiming in, @Dan C. I'll keep my eyes out for an update that includes this feature.