Hyperlink problem when creating book or merging files

[Sha001]

I need to create a book with two chapters. Each chapter has a lot of hyperlinks that are linked to anchors within the corresponding chapter. There are no cross-chapter hyperlinks yet. I created chapter B by duplicating chapter A and then making changes. I have made sure there are no duplicate anchor names between the files. The files do not have the same amount of pages, but part of the setup is the same. So for instance chapter A has an index and chapter B has an index. The anchor for the index in chapter A is named "index A", and the anchor in chapter B is named "index B". Since they are not equal in size index A is on page 4 in chapter A, but index B is on page 1 in chapter B.

 

Books Option

The hyperlinks work properly when I test them in Affinity, so they are linked to the correct anchors. However after export the links from chapter A go to the page in chapter B, even though the anchor names are different. Strangely enough it does go to anchor that is "correct" but in the wrong chapter. So instead of hyperlink A going to anchor "index A", it goes to "index B". I even tried to edit a few hyperlinks, just to make sure they were truly linked to the right chapter but still, after export they are linked to the wrong chapter. It only happens with the links from chapter A, but it happens to all (hundreds/thousands) of links that basically have a chapter B twin so to speak (index A to index B, notes A to notes B etc.). Chapter B stays linked to itself. 

I cannot recreate this, even when I make a test file with identical anchor names and by first duplicating the first file, this problem doesn't occur. 

 

Add pages from file

When I try to work around the problem and just make 1 document I run into basically the same problem. I add all pages from file B to file A, or even made a whole new document and added all pages from both files. However, now file B's hyperlinks go to file A's twin, again the anchor names are still different. In this case file A does stay linked to itself. When I edit the anchor names and re-attach the hyperlinks they work properly again, but as the files have more than a thousand anchors I can't change them all individually again. It's as though somewhere along the line, since file B is created from file A, there is some sort of permanent link which I can't remove. But again, I personally can't seem to recreate this problem.

 

I can export both documents and merge them with third party software, but I would like to make some cross-chapter links that I don't want to have to redo everytime I want to make a change in my design. So preferably I would just like to keep the files in Affinity Publisher. I hope there is a simple solution. 

 

 

 

[MikeTO]

Hi @Sha001 and welcome to the forums.

Anchors are an interesting issue. Although the names that we see as users are what we choose for linking, Publisher uses an internal ID for anchors and each one is unique. When you duplicate a chapter file, you're breaking this model by having documents with identical anchors. Renaming them doesn't change their internal ID so linking to the Apples anchor in chapter 2, which was previously named Oranges, will still link to the Apples anchor in chapter 1 which it was duplicated from.

I didn't test add pages from file but it might have the same issue. If it does, both of these should be addressed someday. But for now, the solution to this is to delete and replace the anchors after duplicating a chapter - renaming them is insufficient.

You're only allowed to have one index per document, and while the Books feature technically allows you to have one index per chapter document, it's not advisable because each index will be the same in all chapters - Publisher lacks the ability to generate chapter-specific indexes.

Good luck

[Sha001]

Ah that’s a bummer. I did do the same with a small test file and didn’t have an issue but maybe I didn’t recreate it the same.
 

Thanks for your explanation @MikeTO and quick response! Hope this can get fixed at some point as duplicating files for their hyperlinks/anchors saves a lot of time.

Edited November 14, 2024 by Sha001