PDF Exporter

PDF Catalog Hyperlink Automation

Export catalog pages to PDF files with personalized hyperlinks for every product

If you are creating PDF versions of your Adobe InDesign catalog pages, and you need to embed hyperlinks for product information, then the PDF Exporter module is for you. The PDF Exporter module works by scanning documents for existing DesignMerge Catalog placeholders, styling them, and then converting them into hyperlinks as the document is exported to PDF. The final, exported PDF file will contain a styled and totally unique hyperlink everywhere a special DesignMerge Catalog placeholder exists, with the correct part numbers and other data values automatically assigned. Your PDF files can then be utilized as a part of an online catalog, or uploaded to your favorite page turning application.

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An example table from a catalog listing thousands of product SKU's, all uniquely hyperlinked using PDF Exporter!

Easy Setup

If you are an existing DesignMerge Catalog customer, then the setup for PDF Exporter takes only a few minutes. For each Variable Link that you wish to convert into a PDF hyperlink, you simply specify the full URL to use as a part of the Variable Link definition. For the URL that you enter, PDF Exporter supports a large list of replaceable parameters, which are swapped with actual data at the time of the export. This allows the URL you entered to be customized on-the-fly during the PDF export process, so every DesignMerge Catalog placeholder, on every page of your catalog, receives its own unique hyperlink. No manual entry required!

 

Be Selective

Using DesignMerge Catalog software, it is very likely that you have more than one data element tagged in your catalog, but you certainly don’t want to apply a hyperlink to each one (although that  is totally possible). The unique design of DesignMerge Catalog makes this very easy to manage. For example, if you want to apply hyperlinks only to the Part Numbers in your catalog, then you can easily create a separate DesignMerge DDF for this process. In this fashion, you will have one DDF for exporting PDF’s, and a separate DDF for importing pricing and other information with DesignMerge Catalog, both available with the click of a button.

 

What About Style?

The software prompts you to select from a predefined list of Adobe InDesign style sheets that will be applied automatically to any text range that receives a hyperlink. This allows you to determine exactly how the hyperlinked text (or objects) will appear on your PDF pages when opened or viewed online. And by the way, the hyperlinks are not just limited to text ranges – complete text and image frames can be tagged as hyperlinks too.

 

Batch Processing Included

Many customers have organized their catalog into individual pages, spreads or sections, which means a lot of separate Adobe InDesign documents. To make life easy for you, we added a built-in batch processing feature for PDF Exporter. Just select the documents you want to export, and head out for a cup of coffee. PDF Exporter will open and export each document in turn, and assemble an entire folder full of PDF files for you, all ready to go.

 

Hyperlink Flexibility

PDF Exporter supports generic hyperlinks with replaceable parameters, or fully custom hyperlink entries. For example, some of our customers provide a data file that contains the product number and the desired catalog hyperlink in separate fields. PDF Exporter can be configured to read these custom hyperlinks directly from the data file during the export process, providing granular control over each and very linked item. As another option, you can even embed other Variable Link references within the hyperlink definition. This type of design provides the ultimate in flexibility, which is what you would expect from the Meadows design team.

 

PDF Exporter Features

  • What’s included with PDF Exporter
  • Automatically converts DesignMerge Catalog placeholders into PDF hyperlinks

  • No manual entry – URL’s for hyperlinks can be shared across all documents

  • Robust set of replaceable parameters that can be embedded in any URL

  • Option to uniquely style each link during the export process

  • Supports both URL hyperlinks and relative document hyperlinks

  • Hyperlink URL’s can also be imported from any external database field

  • Full batch processing available – create hundreds of PDF files in one session

  • Ideal for PDF catalogs, or embedding links for online page turning systems

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What They’re Saying

We have been using DesignMerge Catalog for Adobe InDesign for a number of years. DesignMerge Catalog helps us update the pricing on each page of our 3,000+ page catalog much faster than trying to update each price individually, and the reporting features help to catch any errors.

In addition, we recently started to use the PDF Exporter feature which is a very helpful tool that works with DesignMerge Catalog. I have been working with Meadows for several years, and they are very easy to work with and have excellent technical support.

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Vanita Ellis
Catalog Manager