Question about Hyperlinked Table of Contents

[suebaby41]

I downloaded some tutorials from a website. On the website, the Table of Contents was a hyperlinked Table of Contents and the links worked. In my downloaded file, the hyperlinks would not work until I right-clicked in the Table of Contents and clicked Update Index/Table

The same thing happened when I emailed a tutorial to a friend. The hyperlinked Table of Contents in my file worked but when she received her email and downloaded the attachment, the Table of Contents links would not work until she did the Update Index/Table procedure.

What would cause this?
Is this just the way hyperlinks work?
Is it a setting on my computer that I can change?
Is it a setting in OpenOffice Writer that I can change?

I do not know very much about how computers work; this may be a dumb question.
I would appreciate any and all help.

[Hagar Delest]

Just a basic question: are you sure you did save the file after updating the table (and before sending it)?
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[Hagar Delest]

How strange, I faced the problem few minutes ago with a month old document; but even if I've not saved the file, I cannot reproduce this !

I wonder if this is not due to the version of OOo I used when I created the TOC: with 2.0, the numbering of outlines as hyperlink targets was wrong (all outlines had 0. for level 1, 0.0. for level 2, ...). With 2.0.2, it's OK.

Could you please give the adress of the tutorials with this problem?
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[suebaby41]

Yes. I updated the links and saved the file before I sent it.

I am using OpenOffice 2.0.2. This is the location of the tutorials that I downloaded and had the problem with the hyperlinks not being active until I right-clicked in the Table of Contents and clicked Update Index/Table.

http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/category_index/wordprocessing.html

Thanks.

[Hagar Delest]

I think the problem comes from the version used to create the documents. I've sent them a mail.

But once it is saved on my HD with the actualized TOC, hyperlinks are OK afterwards.
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[suebaby41]

Yes. After I update the index/table and save the file on my computer, the hyperlinks work great.

Thanks.

[suebaby41]

Kotaguy at Malware Removal gave me the answer. Thanks KotaGuy

KotaGuy said:
When you were accessing the tutorial links while online... all those links are local to the server that is hosting it. Therefore any link you click would request the page from the server.

When you downloaded the tutorial, all pages/links for the tutorial are now local on your computer. Therefore updating the links is neccessary as all info is kept on your computer itself and not the web server.

Without updating the links to reflect the new page locations on your computer... when you clicked on a link it was still looking for the page... but using the webservers location for that page instead of your own computer.

[Hagar Delest]

I'm not really sure of this. Even when you save a web page on your HD, the links are modified : all the targets within the page have a new address that takes into account the new location on your HD (addresses to other web pages are not changed).

For an .odt file (or whatever the format is, pdf, doc, ...) the links to targets inside the document do not change and are kept as they are since the location is "inside the document". There is no need to change them (no reference to any precise location).

For information, I saved one of the online tutorials on my HD (the .html file) and some hyperlinks do not work. So there is certainly a bug in both the code of the .odt file and the .html file.
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[suebaby41]

Did you right-click in the Table of Contents and select "Update Index/Table" to get the links to work?

[Hagar Delest]

Of course I did and it works. I was speaking in a general manner in my last post: what I mean is that internal targets do not refer to the place where the file is saved. Links in pdf files are valid wherever the file is; it is the same for odt files. So the problem with these tutos does not come from the fact they were on a server or not.

I think it has more to do with the way the TOC has been built the first time. With OOo 2.0, I've had some files where hyperlinks in TOC showed zeros (0.0.) instead of outline numbering (2.1. for example).
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[suebaby41]

Are you referring to something I (or whoever) do to make the hyperlinked TOC that makes the hyperlinks not work when the TOC is emailed or downloaded?

To make the hyperlinked TOC, I click Insert > Index and Tables > Indexes and Tables > Table of Contents. I remove the check mark in front of "Protect Against Manual Changes". I click the Entries" tab. I click in the white space before "E" and click the "Hyperlink" button, click in the space after the "E" and click the "Hyperlink" button. Then I click "All" and "OK".

Or are you referring to the way OpenOffice makes the TOC?

Thanks for your help.

[Hagar Delest]

I'm referring to the way OOo creates the TOC.
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[suebaby41]

Thanks.
Is there some way to let OpenOffice programmers know that there is a problem?

[Hagar Delest]

Yes, there is an issue report system, the link can be found in posts in this forum.

But I think this issue has been solved with 2.0.2. Only the documents created with 2.0 (and perhaps 2.0.1) should be updated. Therefore, I don't think it's very usefull to report this one (which has certainly has been already since it has been corrected).

For the tutos on the web site, I've had some answers from someone, I suggested them to update the files. Wait and see !
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[suebaby41]

By updating files that were created in 2.0, do you mean opening them and saving them again in 2.02?

I have opened several of these files, made changes, etc.