Acrobat’s URL Parsing Option
June 29th, 2005
The story began when I suddenly found that a URL was being parsed from the PDF document of a case study, which I had created. The original document was made using InDesign CS and I was pretty sure that I had not inserted a bookmark/hyperlink anywhere. The object in question was a URL and an email ID (corporate.engineering@tcs.com). Once opened in Acrobat Reader 7, the links used to become live. The second problem which I faced here was that although the URL was parsed properly, the email ID was faulty. So instead of corporate.engineering@tcs.com it parsed only engineering@tcs.com.After searching high and low, I finally got some answers. Acrobat Reader (6 & 7) comes with an option of automatically parsing text as URLs (see Edit › Preferences › General). In the case of the email, it was discovered that it took the ‘.’ (in the corporate’.’ engineering@tcs.com) as a full stop (and therefore an end to the sentence) and parsed the later half of it as an email :) This was a pleasant revelation for me. I am relieved of a great worry.
Entry Filed under: Design
