How to Link to Various Sections of a PDF
Mar 18, 2014
Hi Storyline Geniuses,
I'm working on a project that instructs users about how to find information in clinical research findings published in journals. We're working with one article, of which I have a PDF. The Storyline module is broken into sections matching those of the article (introduction, authors, abstract, methods, etc.). In each section, users must read the relevant section of the article. I would like to provide a link in Storyline to the particular section of the PDF, going directly to the section so the user doesn't have to scroll through the PDF. I have been told this is a problem on iPad and as the users will be accessing the module on iPads, I'd like to avoid it if possible. Also, I understand Resources in the player isn't an option for iPad users, either.
Does anyone have any suggestions about the best way to accomplish this? I have access to a team member's Acrobat Pro--is there a way to set up the PDF so that we can link to specific sections from Storyline, perhaps via bookmarks in the PDF? Suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Gina
11 Replies
One option is to display the pdf in a webobject and include the pagenumber in the URL. See here for an example. For instance: http://dev.keypointlearn.com/xcl71_SL/PDF/mypdf.pdf#page=4 would navigate to page 4 for the pdf.
Thanks, Michael! I'll try your solution and see how it works.
Hi Michael,
The PDF is currently in Box, a file sharing site. The URL is: https://app.box.com/files/0/f/1327954582/1/f_15428634395
I tried inserting a web object linked to it, but it did not open when playing Storyline. Do you know if the location URL is the problem?
Thanks,
Gina
Yes, that's what I thought, too. I'll have to see what we can do about relocating the PDF. Thanks for your help!
This has worked for me.
I've also attached a document with screen shots.
Steps for linking to any paragraph or line in a pdf:
Step 1: Make sure the pdf document you are linking to is saved locally.
Step 2: Open the pdf using Acrobat Pro
Step 3: Using Acrobat Pro, Create a destination (https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/links-attachments-pdfs.html). Be sure to use all small letters and no capital letters in the naming your destination. Storyline does not allow capital letters in naming your pdf destination. If you use caps, Storyline will change your pdf destination name to all small letters when you click away and come back, breaking the link.
SAVE your file again after creating the destination!
Step 4: In Storyline, create a button. The Trigger Wizard will have you fill in four fields: Action, File, When, and Object. Select the action “Jump to URL/File”
Step 5: For the "File" field, browse to the file you want to link to. This should be the file in which you have saved your destination. Link to your destination by adding “#nameddest=” (sans quotation marks) and the name of your destination to the end of the pdf file name
For example, for a destination named “engaging” I would write #nameddest=engaging
Step 6: Publish your project
Step 7: Open the file with the published content. Copy the pdf with all of the destinations to this location: NameOfFile - Storyline output\story_content\external_files
Step 8: Launch your project and it should work.
Note: If you use URLs containing local hard drive addresses (c:\folder\), you cannot link to page numbers or set destinations.
Wow - thanks for sharing Susan!
Thanks Susan - going to test this out now! Thanks for sharing :-)
I have had inconsistent results with this now. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not. I've gone back to opening PDF files in Acrobat, deleting the pages I don't want, and then just linking to the one or two relevant pages. Feels like the dark ages, but I cannot get my previous process to work anymore.
Does this pdf linking process work on all platforms? Pc, Mac, iPad and iPhone?
Linking to various sections of a PDF
This can be achieved by linking the actual object (D:\filename.pdf) to a disabled state of a button and then linking the relative location of the file to the buttons normal state (story_content/external_files/filename.pdf#page=2)