OpenOffice Table of Contents with Hyperlinks in a PDF
One thing that makes great pdf documents is a hyperlinked table of contents. OpenOffice is a good tool to do this with. The OpenOffice 2.2.1 documentation is not clear on how to do this so I will explain it some more and it should make sense.
First you want to have some content in OpenOffice writer with labeled content sections. So if you had a document that looked like this:
Section 1
This is all about what is in section 1. I could write more but you get the point.
Section 2
This is a bit more in depth of what we touched upon earlier.
First highlight ‘Section 1′ and change its format to Heading 1. Do the same for ‘Section 2′ also changing its format to Heading 1. Position your cursor where you want your table of contents. Now click Insert/Indexes and Tables/Index and Tables… Click the Entries tab.
For each heading level you want hyperlinks in your table of contents do the following. Remember earlier you used Heading 1 for a format type. For Heading level 1, click on 1 in the Level field which is probably already selected. Next to the level field is the Structure area. Find the button marked F. Click in the blank area before this button, between the F button and the button before it. There should now be a flashing cursor where you clicked. Click the Hyperlink button. Now find the area inbetween the F button and the button that follows it and click there. Then click Hyperlink again.
You should now notice three things. You should have two new buttons surrounding the F button in the Structure area. If you have preview checked on, you should also see that Heading 1 is now underlined and blue indicating that it is a hyperlink. Go ahead and click ok to create/save your table of contents.
Now when you export your document as a PDF file make sure Tagged PDF is checked. Also make sure you save the document in OpenOffice or some other file format other than PDF so you can edit it later. A PDF file is a compiled file that is not designed to manipulate after it has been created. It is designed so that it looks the same on multiple platforms.