InDesign to Adobe Acrobat to Adobe Reader Link problem

Question

Hi - I'm responsible for a long conversation about link problems in creating file links in InDesign that did not work in Acrobat. At the end of that long discussion, I thought I solved the problem, but didn't. Since then, I've been MUCH more observant.
The problem appears to take place in Adobe Reader.
My home computer on Win7 is different than my work Computer (XP), but I have the same software on both.
At work, I discovered that when I clicked on a PDF, it worked fine, that its links opened a new PDF window, but when I clicked on links on the second document, the links failed and Microsoft returned an error message telling me that I was screwed. Because I was screwed, I couldn't see what was in the path of that error.
It turns out that for some unknown reason (which you might clarify for me), my Adobe Readers are attempting to open my documents in Internet Explorer and that just won't work.
What I observed at home is that I made 5 test documents in ID, and ported them to Acrobat. As it turns out, my default for opening PDFs is Adobe Reader, which I saw on the chrome of the first document I opened. When I clicked a link, and I got the error message, I noticed my browser was up.
When I set my default for opening in Acrobat, everything worked like a charm! How about that!
Now then, what that says to me is that Adobe Reader is to be used exclusively with a browser, so if the people who are going to read your internal PDF files with Reader without those files being on a web server of some type, you are totally screwed. The only way you can use Reader is if you click on the file and bring it up directly. Don't rely on linking to other documents.
I mean, that is what it seems to me.
Now, I am creating a big project for an environment without a webserver and obviously my sense of panic is palpable. That said, I believe that all my users can read my files using Acrobat (to be tested tomorrow), which I hope means I can breathe a bit easier.
Do any of you have any thoughts on this subject? If you are really curious, I can make a packet of test files available.

Answer 1

Karen_Little wrote:
The files and the PDFs are all in the same directory.
The tests are on local drives. All indesign files and their related PDFs were in the same directory.
The same for Word and its related PDFs. Note that the PDFs created by Word then read by Adobe Reader worked correctly. They all opened in Adobe Reader.
If the default program for opening PDFs is Acrobat, everything works correctly, with the added benefit of everything opening in a different window, which is what I want (yet to be tested at work). If the default program is Adobe Reader, the second generation of links do NOT work because Reader opens in Internet Explorer.
When I open a Word-created PDF with Acrobat, view the link, and click to the Actions menu, the action is "Open a file"
When I open an InDesign PDF with Acrobat and do the same, the action says "Open a web link"
Big BIG BIG bug.
Are you seeing the link commands by editing them in Acrobat? If not, try, so you can see the exact command and file or URL instruction. It still may be a bug, but you'll have better evidence when you report it here:
Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form
And, you might want to try correcting a link command in Acrobat, to see if can work for both Acrobat and Reader.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices