Revit 2015 R2 - PDF Hyperlinks

[atiefenbach]

I can't seem to get the hyperlinks to function the way the About Printing to PDF Help says it should. I'm printing with the Adobe PDF print driver and viewing with Adobe Acrobat X Standard. I have three questions I'm hoping for answers to.

Question 1

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Help States: A table of contents provides easy navigation among the construction documents. Click a title in the table of contents to open that view or sheet.

First, Revit doesn't have a "Table of Contents", it's referring to a "Sheet List". Second, I've tried creating a new Sheet List in an existing project, an upgraded project and a new file from no template and all three have failed to create hyperlinks to the Sheets. I've also created a "View List" and it also fails to creates hyperlinks to the Views or Sheets. Am I missing a step or settings?

Question 2

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Help states: View markers within a view or sheet are active hyperlinks. Click a marker to jump to that view or sheet in the PDF file. If you print views and sheets to individual PDF files, clicking a marker opens the corresponding file for the view or sheet.

Hyperlinks are created for markers in the Revit model, however, it does not link to "Views", only the Sheet the View is on. Am I missing a step or settings?

Question 3

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Since printing individual PDFs will only function if the fies are not relocated (like emailed or sent to an iPad), we're more likely to print to a combined PDF, but the sheets print out of order. Previously, we would just move the "G" Sheets to the front of the PDF, in Adobe Acrobat, once it was done printing. With the hyperlinks, however, this relocating of the "G" Sheets will break the hyperlinks, meaning the sheet order must be set in Revit before printing. I tried the Batch Print add-in, but it doesn't give us the options to create individual PDF files, its slower to print, it only uses the default printer (which is my printer, not Adobe PDF Printer), and in order for it to print in the correct order I have to select my "G" Sheets and click the up arrow for each Sheet it should be above, the "A" Sheets, which, when you're printing hundreds of "A" Sheets can be a lot of clicks. Do you have a solution to this problem?

[scott.a.green]

QUESTION 1: I am not seeing the reference to "Click a title in the table of contents". What version of Help were you using? Below are the instructions you may be looking for.

REVIT HELP 2015:

ABOUT PRINTING TO PDF:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-33DAC17F-8E51-4E46-B4C7-1F9DDC54068C

ABOUT PRINTING VIEWS AND SHEETS:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-AE5EDF3B-4A91-41A0-BFF1-C7B37C0DE7F0

PRINT TO PDF:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-8B7424DD-C07A-4FD7-B4DB-5F7F6F14D8E8

PRINT VIEWS AND SHEETS:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-2E9ACAF3-4563-4820-8E33-1E70ACC0FB00

QUESTION 2:

You may want to clarify the question. Are you trying to create a hyperlink to a url or to some saved file? 

QUESTION 3: 

Currently you cannot print multiple copies using print to .pdf directly from Revit without using an add-in. You can print to .pdf, open the file, then print multiple copies. 

[atiefenbach]

Scott,

Thanks for replying, but your responses lead me to believe that you didn't actaully review the help file I linked to (which was also part of your reply to question #1).  As stated in the subject line, I'm using Revit 2015 R2, which incorporates new features of Revit generating PDFs utilizing hyperlinks to sheets when clicking on view markers.

[tbh]

atiefenbach,

I did some testing on this new function. Here's what I found.

1. The PDF will only create hyperlinks to those sheets that you print at the same time. If you have a floor plan with several wall sections, and you print the floor plan and only one of the wall section sheets, it onlt creates rticular wall section sheet.

2. You can print thes and move them to any other folder. The link will work as long as you keep the files together and don't rename them.

3. You can print either one PDF file with multiple sheets in it or seperate PDFs and the links will work. I didn't read the help file ut I'm thinking that's the table of contents they're refering to. The one in the PDF file.

4. There are no hyperlinks between the drawing list and the sheets. The hyperlinks only work with elevations, sections and callouts as far as I can tell. I was hoping for the link to the sheets but unfortunately that functionality is not there. Hopefully in the future.

Not quite where it needs to be but a nice start.

[scott.a.green]

   Yes I see in our readme for R2:

• PDF Export enhancements:
  • Share your designs as electronic PDF files with automatically linked views and sheets. Each view tag in the PDF file is a hyperlink. Click a hyperlink to jump to that view or sheet in the PDF file. See About Printing to PDF.
  • Avoid lengthy or unintended print jobs. If you choose to print multiple views and sheets to individual PDF files, you cannot cancel the print job once it starts. A new message warns you of this issue and allows you to cancel the print job before it starts. Instead, consider printing the views and sheets to a single PDF file. See Troubleshooting: Printing Views and Sheets.

   I see in the troubleshooting printing views and sheets article about using Adobe PDF, and you stated that you are using Adobe PDF

   Hyperlinks in electronic PDF files do not work

When you print views and sheets to PDF files and open a PDF file, the hyperlinks between PDF files do not work as expected.

This issue can be caused by one of the following situations:

• You are using the Windows Store Reader app on Microsoft® Windows® 8. The issue is a feature design limitation of the Windows Store Reader app. For details, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2777631.

  To resolve the issue, use another PDF viewer that supports hyperlinks, such as Adobe Reader®.

• The PDF print driver used to generate the PDF file does not support hyperlinks.

  To resolve the issue, check the specifications for the PDF print driver. If it does not support hyperlinks, use a different PDF print driver, such as the Adobe PDF® print driver.

   It may be nice to have a Screencast video of the steps you are taking while attempting to print to PDF. 

   Autodesk Screencast:

   https://screencast.autodesk.com/

[rosskirby · Accepted solution]

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@atiefenbach wrote:

Question 1

---

Help States: A table of contents provides easy navigation among the construction documents. Click a title in the table of contents to open that view or sheet.

First, Revit doesn't have a "Table of Contents", it's referring to a "Sheet List". Second, I've tried creating a new Sheet List in an existing project, an upgraded project and a new file from no template and all three have failed to create hyperlinks to the Sheets. I've also created a "View List" and it also fails to creates hyperlinks to the Views or Sheets. Am I missing a step or settings?

This is referring to the Table of Contents created in the PDF file, not your sheet index.  Creating a schedule (i.e. "View List" or "Door Schedule") will not create a "smart" schedule where you can click on an item in the schedule and go to that item.  This hyperlink functionality only works for view callouts. 

Question 2

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Help states: View markers within a view or sheet are active hyperlinks. Click a marker to jump to that view or sheet in the PDF file. If you print views and sheets to individual PDF files, clicking a marker opens the corresponding file for the view or sheet.

Hyperlinks are created for markers in the Revit model, however, it does not link to "Views", only the Sheet the View is on. Am I missing a step or settings?

 You're not missing anything.  It won't zoom in on the specific detail/view for you, but it will take you to the correct sheet.  After that, you're on your own for the 2-4 seconds it takes to find the detail on the sheet.

Question 3

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Since printing individual PDFs will only function if the fies are not relocated (like emailed or sent to an iPad), we're more likely to print to a combined PDF, but the sheets print out of order. Previously, we would just move the "G" Sheets to the front of the PDF, in Adobe Acrobat, once it was done printing. With the hyperlinks, however, this relocating of the "G" Sheets will break the hyperlinks, meaning the sheet order must be set in Revit before printing. I tried the Batch Print add-in, but it doesn't give us the options to create individual PDF files, its slower to print, it only uses the default printer (which is my printer, not Adobe PDF Printer), and in order for it to print in the correct order I have to select my "G" Sheets and click the up arrow for each Sheet it should be above, the "A" Sheets, which, when you're printing hundreds of "A" Sheets can be a lot of clicks. Do you have a solution to this problem?

Can't help you here.  Until there's a feasible print-order function, you've got to either change your sheet numbering scheme, print to PDF and re-sort manually when combining, re-order in Adobe Acrobat (if you have it), export to DWF and re-order there, or get BlueBeam Revu and generate your PDFs that way.

Of those options, BlueBeam and DWFs are probably your best bets, as they are guaranteed to be hyperlinked and in the order you want.

Hope that helps.

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[tbh]

We have a simlar issue here with printing and sorting the PDF's. We use an outside printing service for our final drawing sets when going out for bid. The way we've alieviated some of these problems is by adding a number at the begining of the file name indicating the order it needs to appear in the drawing set. 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, etc. Once the drawings are in their hands they're software keeps everything in order. We also print seperate PDF files, mainly because if we need to reprint one drawing we can quickly get the sheet we want, so there may be other issues that I'm not aware of with multiple sheet PDFs.

It's not perfect, occassionally you still have a drawing that falls outside the typical drawing order, and it adds some coordination on my part, but it has worked effectively so far.

[EKey]

Hi!

I have the same problem. I remember I tried PDF output and I was impressed - it's a dream to vagate between sheets and section with clicks!

Bot now it doesn't work.

I have:

Revitversion: 20150303_1515(x64) Update Release 7

Printer driver: Adove PDF

VIewer: Adobe Acrobat Reader X

It should work as promised, but it doesn't. 

May be I miss some setings in Revit?

Thank you.