PDF "Link" Question

[Joe]

I have a PDF file that lists 30 commercial programs, then lists freeware programs that the author believes are adequate substitutes. The freeware programs have some sort of hyperlinks that are visible as "tooltips" when you mouse over the name of the freeware program. Also--if you are connected to the internet and have your web browser running-- if you click on the freeware program name your browser will go to the linked webpage.

My question: is there a way to copy the text of the link without being connected to the internet and going to the website of the freeware program? If so, how?

 

[Second Summer]

Not sure ... Is there a drop-down menu if you right-click on the links, like you can do in a browser? If so, there might be a menu option there to copy the link to the clipboard.

 

[Joe]

Not sure ... Is there a drop-down menu if you right-click on the links, like you can do in a browser? If so, there might be a menu option there to copy the link to the clipboard.

Yes, right clicking does bring up a menu. However, none of the choices seems to relate to copying the link. It is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. (See above.)

 

[Second Summer]

A couple of other ideas: copy and paste the text into e.g. an OpenOffice, LibreOffice or MS Word document, then right-click to get the link from there. Or try another PDF viewer.

 

[Second Summer]

Or indeed paste it into the post editor here on VV.

 

[Joe]

A couple of other ideas: copy and paste the text into e.g. an OpenOffice, LibreOffice or MS Word document, then right-click to get the link from there. Or try another PDF viewer.

Thanks for the suggestions. But copying the text (into Libre Office, for example) only copies the "external" text and does not copy the underlying link. Ditto for copying it to the Post window on VV. Have not tried using another PDF viewer (been using Adobe Reader).

 

[Joe]

I wrote to a friend of mine who is a retired mathematics professor at Vanderbilt University. He came up with a workable solution.

Load the .PDF file into a tab in Firefox. Then left-click on the name of the linked program, and select "Copy Link Location" from the menu. Paste link into Notepad or any word processor.

Note: The same procedure may work with browsers other than Firefox, but neither my friend nor I have tried it with a browser other than Firefox.

Note also: It is somewhat "illogical" that this should work, since Firefox is using some "helper" version of the Adobe Reader to read PDFs, and the Adobe Reader seemed to be the source of the problem in the first place.