HTML links to document page broken after merge

[sanohin]

If you have links in PDF file (html anchor tag with element id as href) they would not work after merging.

<a href="#target">Go to target</a>
....some content
<div id="target>Target here</div>

report = PdfFileReader(BytesIO(pdf)) # rendered html file to pdf with html links
merger = PdfFileMerger(strict=False)
merger.append(report)

result = BytesIO()
merger.write(result)
result.seek(0)
return result.read()

[jackneil]

I second this issue. It occurs when merging even via the pageObject.mergePage method

[advename]

I'll jump on the train - having the same issue here!

[MartinThoma]

Can anybody share a PDF which shows this issue? Is it still an issue with the latest PyPDF2 version?

[SimplyOm]

@MartinThoma Not sure if you're still looking for an example, but you can find one below:

• book.pdf
• book_out.pdf

I have generated book.pdf using sample doc creation of jupyter-book project. You can see that internal HTML links in Contents section of book_out.pdf don't work, which work fine in book.pdf. The conversion from book.pdf to book_out.pdf uses the below code snippet:

from PyPDF2 import PdfReader, PdfWriter

PDF = "./doc/_build/pdf/book.pdf"
OUT_PDF = "./doc/_build/pdf/book_out.pdf"

reader = PdfReader(PDF)
writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages:
    writer.addPage(page)

with open(OUT_PDF, "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

[MartinThoma]

Thank you @SimplyOm :hugs:

[dc-em]

Hi @MartinThoma , is this solved? facing same issue

[pubpub-zz]

In progress, should come back soon

[pubpub-zz]

I think the issue is found : a) The links are using named dest, not copied with the add_page : I've coded the append/merge functions into PdfWriter
b) some types were not matching : I've added a function for that (implemented in the merge changes in pr #1371 (still in progress)

[manathan1984]

On a relevant issue, when using merge, the internal links of a pdf seem to be broken. I refer to links, for example, to a reference at the end of the pdf in a research paper or to a section of the paper. Any ideas on how to keep those links active when mergin?

[pubpub-zz]

@manathan1984, it is now recommended to use PdfWriter and append() that should fix the issues. Can you try it and update the status of this issue?

[DX9807]

@pubpub-zz

writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf in ["cover_page.pdf", "main_report.pdf", "back_cover.pdf"]:
    writer.append(pdf)

with open("result.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

getting below error when using PdfWriter and append() .

AttributeError: 'NumberObject' object has no attribute 'indirect_reference'

[pubpub-zz]

@DX9807 Can you please provide the pdf

[DX9807]

@pubpub-zz Check the files given below back_cover.pdf central.pdf cover_page.pdf

While trying to merge the above pdfs using PdfWriter and its append method I am getting this error.

AttributeError: 'NumberObject' object has no attribute 'indirect_reference'

But when I use PdfMerger class and the corresponding append method the pdfs get merged but the internal hyperlinks are not working in this case,

[rocketrefrigerator]

Hello, it is included in 3.16.0?

[stefan6419846]

If you have a look at the last commit referenced here (https://github.com/py-pdf/pypdf/commit/b1fa953bf7585e799c1541fd4bd5b0b8daa247bc), you will see that this fix is included since version 3.11.1.