mailto and Web links in PDF: a better way

["Stuart Burnfield" <stuartb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

You can insert a hypertext marker such that, when the Frame doc is
converted to PDF, clicking on the link opens a new mail message or
browser window using the user's default mail client or browser. You
just enter a marker of type Hypertext containing a string such as

   message URL mailto:stuartb@phlogiston.com.au
   message URL http://www.phlogiston.com.au/

This is a nice feature but there are a couple of tricks to be aware
of.

1. It must be URL, not url. My sharp-eyed colleague Anil Subramanya
   just pointed this out to me.

2. There are two ways to enter a hypertext link. I had been using
   the marker window (Special > Marker) and selecting Hypertext then
   typing in the text. A better way is to use Special > Hypertext
   and choose the option Go To URL. This inserts the first part of
   the string, "message URL" and all you need to do is add the URL
   or e-mail address. There's an example command to show the right
   syntax, and an option to validate the syntax of each marker you
   enter.

3. When you click the email address in the PDF, Acrobat launches
   your browser, which then opens your email client. This means
   you're left with a browser window that you probably don't want.
   I understand this behaviour is a browser or OS setting that can
   be fixed by the user, but the author has no control over it.

4. You can automatically fill in some of the blanks in the mail
   message by adding ?field=value. For example:

   message URL mailto:abc@xyz.com ?Subject=Hey%20You ?cc=ac@dc.com

   You can't have spaces inside a 'value' but you replace them with
   %20. They will be converted back to spaces in the mail message.

   (Thanks to Shlomo Perets and Rainer Jochim for these last tips --
   I found them in the archives.)

Hope this helps someone
---
Stuart Burnfield
Gentoo Communications
mailto:stuartb@tpg.com.au


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