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telyni19Flag for United States of America

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Internal Powerpoint hyperlinks shifted after converting to PDF

I've got a large powerpoint file (about 1 MB) that I'm converting to pdf. Microsoft's add-on works beautifully, but I've got one problem. I have a number of internal hyperlinks on slide 2 that point to the various other slides in the presentation, and then the other slides have a hyperlink that points back to slide 2. When I save the presentation as a pdf, the links are all shifted by one slide/page. So the links on the various slides all point to slide 3 instead, and the links on slide 2 point to one slide later than they are supposed to.

Now, the really interesting thing is that if I had been using Adobe Acrobat, I never would have noticed, because the links work correctly in Adobe. However, I like other pdf viewers better for their additional features, so I didn't try it first in Adobe, and discovered I had a problem. Both FoxIt Viewer and PDF-XChange show the file with the links shifted by one slide on my computer. On the other hand, I have a colleague also using PDF-XChange who finds that the links work as intended on his computer.

Additional details:
-Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 SP1
-Adobe Acrobat 9 (works), PDF-XChange 2.0 (doesn't work), Foxit Reader 3.3 (doesn't work)
-Both .ppt and .pptx formats exhibit the same behavior.
-The original links were hyperlinks created over an entire phrase of multiple words, which got converted in the PDF into separate links for each word and space between them. However, even an icon with the hyperlink added exhibits the same behavior, so it's not a problem of spaces, and Adobe shows the links as being word-by-word too.
-All hyperlinks with the problem are internal links to slides in the same presentation. Links to websites work correctly, although they too seem to have been converted to word-by-word links.
-Both programs I mentioned have features for setting and editing links. Both show that the links are pointing to the correct page, but until the link is edited and re-pointed to that page, the link does not actually go to the correct page on my computer.
-My colleague's computer has the exact same versions of Powerpoint and PDF-XChange as mine. It doesn't matter if the PDF is converted on my computer or his; the links work as intended on his computer and not on mine. This is one reason I haven't bothered attaching my file; the links would probably work just fine for you all reading this question, particularly if you're using Adobe. It seems to be an issue just with my computer. And no, it's not all in my head.

Any ideas?
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scrathcyboy
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Well, the PDF exported using OpenOffice did handle the links correctly without making them word by word and even added bookmarks, so it does seem to be true that it works better than the Microsoft add-on for PDF conversions.

However:
-This doesn't explain the difference between my computer and my colleague's computer with regard to where the links led.

-I'm not convinced that OpenOffice works better than Microsoft Office for everything. I do a lot of work with Excel and Access, and some things just don't work quite as well in OO. As one small example, I often move around an Excel spreadsheet with the arrow keys and sometimes delete the contents of a cell with the Delete key. In OO, this brings up a selection menu for what types of cell content to delete. This is arguably more flexible, yet if all I'm trying to do is delete the text, it's an extra keystroke or mouseclick every single time. But this isn't a thread for discussing the merits of OO vs MSOffice, so I'll stop there.

I'll leave this question open for a little longer, as I'm still rather curious about the difference. If nobody has any idea soon, then all the points will go to scrathcyboy for the solution to getting a PDF with correct links.
Maybe give this a shot:

Bad hyperlinks in PDFs from Acrobat
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00744.htm
Yep, tried that, thanks. The code did reset a few of the later hyperlinks that still had an index from before I'd moved or added new slides, but it didn't change the earlier links, which were off one slide just like the later links. And after the code ran, all the links were still off by one slide after PDF conversion with the Microsoft add-in.
Thanks for the fix for my pdf.