Hyperlinks

Regular InDesign hyperlinks are supported, but there are some extra benefits to using CircularFLO Hyperlink tools.

CircularFLO Hyperlinks Tools

Hyperlinks
The Hyperlink Tools panel can be used to quickly add hyperlinks to any areas of the page.

The Hyperlink Tools panel (CircularFLO Window menu > Hyperlink Tools) can be used to quickly add hyperlinks.

Make FLO LINKS layer

Adds an InDesign layer named FLO_LINKS to move CircularFLO hyperlink frames onto manually.

Draw Hyperlink Regions

Quickly add hyperlink regions to your pages. With this tool active, drag to add hyperlink regions on top of any areas of the page. When prompted choose the type of URL you wish to add and enter the destination.

  • For eBook page cross references just enter the name of the InDesign you want to link to.
  • For URLs paste full path from a browser.
  • To add phone numbers enter the full phone number including area code.
  • For Email addresses just add the full email address.
  • For twitter messages enter the full tweet (a maximum of 140 characters are allowed) which can included hashtags, user names and web URLs.

Once one hyperlink has been added using the ‘Draw Hyperlink Regions’ tool simply draw another frame to repeat the process or switch tools to finish adding hyperlinks.

Auto add page links

Intended for fixed layout ebooks. Click to quickly add page reference hyperlinks to any selected text frames, either on live or embedded text layers.

This tool is looking for lines of text in selected text frames that end or start with a number. If a number is found at either end of a line then a hyperlink to a page of that number is added above the text. If a page range is found then the first number is used.

This makes it particularly useful for quickly adding page reference hyperlinks to large tables of content and simple indexes.

Auto add page links

Intended for fixed layout ebooks. Click to quickly add page reference hyperlinks to any numbers in selected text frames, either on live or embedded text layers.

This tool is looking for any numbers or range of numbers in the text in selected text frames. If a number or number range is found, the hyperlink region is added directly to the number. If a page range is found then the first number is used.

This makes it particularly useful for quickly adding page reference hyperlinks to more complex indexes that contain multiple page references.

Add Hyperlink to selected object

With a graphic object selected in InDesign, click the ‘Add Hyperlink to selected object’ button to add your hyperlink to an InDesign object. Hyperlinked objects can then be animated using the tools in the Animation Tools panel.

Add Hyperlinks to PDF pages

After PDF text has been added using the previous button then the PDF text can be used to help add hyperlinks quickly. Click the button to see a prompt with any URLs or email addresses found in the PDF text for the page you are on. After a confirmation you can then draw the area on the page which his to contain the link and then repeat

Convert hyperlinks to FLO_LINKS

Hyperlinks added to text and objects with InDesign's hyperlinks panel do not carry through to fixed layout files for Amazon or when moving to the FLO_BASE layer for EPUB. This tool fixes that problem by moving the InDesign hyperlinks to CircularFLO hyperlink regions on the FLO_LINKS layer.

Hyperlinks in Amazon fixed layout

Hyperlinks
Although hyperlinks do not respond when testing on the Kindle Previewer app they DO work as expected on the Kindle Fire device.

Although hyperlinks do not respond when testing on the Kindle Previewer app they DO work as expected on the Kindle Fire device.

Use the FLO_LINK layer and Hyperlink Tools to add internal cross references (links to pages within the book) and external hyperlinks (web URLs) to any region of the page.

Hyperlinks added to objects and text using InDesign's tools won't work in fixed-layout. Use the 'Convert hyperlink to FLO_LINKS' to convert hyperlinks on live text and objects in InDesign to CircularFLO method of hyperlinks that do work when exporting to print replica fixed-layout Amazon files.

Hyperlinks in ebooks

Hyperlinks
Regular InDesign hyperlinks are supported but there are some benefits to using CircularFLO tools too.

Hyperlinks added using regular InDesign panels are supported on export with Circular Software. This includes cross-references used in indexes, endnotes and footnotes.

Alongside these, tappable hyperlinks areas can also be added to any part of the page using the CircularFLO hyperlink tools. Page cross-references, web URLs, mail links for email addresses and even phone numbers or twitter messages can be added.

The size and position of all text frames placed on an InDesign layer named FLO_LINKS will be used to create the tappable hyperlinks in the final eBook. The text content of the FLO_LINKS text frame becomes the destination for the hyperlink.

Tools to analyse InDesign text and quickly add FLO_LINKS hyperlinks are available. See more info on Auto add page links and Auto add index links and more in the Hyperlinks Tools information.

Hyperlink regions must be rectangular frames but can be rotated if required and background colours can be used to indicate these areas in InDesign, these layers will not appear in the final EPUB.

Be careful to add the destination exactly and avoid using spaces. For URLs we recommend pasting the entire web address including the http:// or https:// prefix from a browser.

External hyperlinks and internal 'cross reference' hyperlinks to pages within the ebook are supported for Amazon files. Hyperlinks in Amazon fixed layout files are supported but their operation is dependant on the device used to read the ebook and are not active to test in Kindle Previewer 3 app.

Introduction to Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks
Regular InDesign hyperlinks are supported but there are some benefits to using CircularFLO tools too.

The Hyperlink Tools panel (CircularFLO Window menu > Hyperlink Tools) can be used to quickly add hyperlinks.

Tappable hyperlinks areas can also be added to any part of the page using CircularFLO’s hyperlink tools. Page cross-references, web URLs, mail links for email addresses and even phone numbers or twitter messages can be added.