Making .pdf files (fwd)

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:38:47 +1000
From: Stephen Morey <S.Morey at latrobe.edu.au>
To: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au
Subject: Re: Making .pdf files

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Making a .pdf of a complex word document


I want to make a .pdf version of a word document that has a large number
of internal links (bookmarks, headings &c) and a large number of
external links. The external links are

a) To other .pdf files that were word documents that have bookmarks in
them
b) To some of the bookmarks within the other /pdf files referred to in
(a)
c) To sound and possibly video files in /wav and .mpg format
respectively
d) To photographs in .jpg format

When trying to make the .pdf file using Adobe writer, several problems
were encountered

1)      Word creates a system of relative references to files, searching
for other files according to the relation between the source file and
the file to be linked to. .pdf on the other hand relies on absolute
references, which means that it searches back for the same file
structure as the original files.

2)      The main .pdf file cannot link to a bookmark in the other .pdf
file to be linked to, nor to a bookmark in a word file. Word can do
these things.

3)      Only after some significant tinkering with settings was it
possible to get a .pdf file that linked to a .wav file so that the .wav
file would play automatically. On those settings the document would take
many hours to convert to .pdf as it searched and re-searched every link,
table cell &c.


Has anybody encountered these issues and does anyone have any ideas of
how to deal with them?


The background to this is that for every language example we want to
provide a clickable link to (i) a file containing a full transcription
and analysis of the text from which the example came, (ii) the place in
that file where the example is found, for immediate checking of context
and (iii) a sound file of the example so that any reader / researcher
can listen to and check the example.

Many thanks to you all

Stephen Morey