MadCap Software Forums

Hi, I am currently using MadCap Flare 12, Word 2016, and Adobe Acrobat Pro X. Here are the specifics for the challenge I was given:

• In Word, I have an embedded link to a spreadsheet, i.e., when clicked twice in Word, the link opens into an .xlsx spreadsheet.
  The Word document needs to be converted to a Flare project and published as a PDF when completed.
  The SME wants the user to be able to click a link to this same spreadsheet in the PDF published from Flare.

Is this process even possible? From what I can tell, you can add links to the published PDF that will open the spreadsheet, but this is not what I'm trying to find out. I can't tell if there are some steps I can go through when going from Word to Flare to PDF that will preserve the link of the spreadsheet and therefore let you open it once you are in the PDF.

If it's not possible, I'll just let the SME know that and move on to another solution...

Thanks for any thoughts or there-is-no-way-that-can-be-done information!
KR

krsinger wrote:

• In Word, I have an embedded link to a spreadsheet, i.e., when clicked twice in Word, the link opens into an .xlsx spreadsheet.
  The Word document needs to be converted to a Flare project and published as a PDF when completed.
  The SME wants the user to be able to click a link to this same spreadsheet in the PDF published from Flare.

Is this process even possible? From what I can tell, you can add links to the published PDF that will open the spreadsheet, but this is not what I'm trying to find out. I can't tell if there are some steps I can go through when going from Word to Flare to PDF that will preserve the link of the spreadsheet and therefore let you open it once you are in the PDF.

My SMEs also wanted this from Flare and I just gave up. Instead we instruct them to download the Excel file elsewhere by name. Curious if anyone else knows of a solution.

It sounds a bit complicated. PDF function would be very helpful.

I appreciate your response! So far it seems there is no solution, but it's nice to know that someone else has tried doing this. I will probably resort to giving our SMEs the same instructions!

But if there is anyone else who has figured out a solution, please let me know!