The AutoLink tool can convert regular text and font to dynamic hyperlinks to websites, emails, scripts and other web content. 

We also have a video you can check out to see how the tool is used in action.

There are 3 processes, or jobs, you can run on your digital editions at the time of upload/FTP OR post upload in order to create hyperlinks of your choosing:

1  Websites and Emails (Pre-built AutoLink Job)

2  CSV upload (great for large link lists)

3  REGULAR EXPRESSION search and replace(simple word or dynamic find and replace)

NOTE:  All links can now be disabled or enabled.  When you create a job, you can decide to automatically enable all links, or have the links disabled first pending a review.  You can disable or enable a link either individually through the "manage links" tab, OR en masse through the "Manage Auto-Links" tab. 

Creating New OR Managing Existing Autolink Jobs

Websites and Emails

This job is all ready for you to use!  Whether it be during your initial upload of your PDF, or if you want to apply it to an already published edition.

It will convert all text/font that is of a standard website or email format into an interactive hyperlink.  This job will recognize most standard formats of website and email addresses.  Let us know if you use any that aren't being recognized.  Note that this tool will not recognize any image based text.

On Upload

Choose your title and click upload Issue.

In the center of the options screen are the Auto Link jobs available

Once a job has been created under your chosen Title, you can apply that job to all future uploads under that Title.

Post Upload

If you already have an issue uploaded, you can still run the Website and Email Job. 

You can get to the autolink section through the ENHANCE button in your Issue's settings/options.

Click on Create Auto-Links tab and choose Title (if not already selected) and Issue. 

Select Websites/Emails as your "Job Type" and check the "Automatically Enable All Links Found" option if you would like all links created to be active.  If you don't check this option, you will need to review all of the links created by your job, and enable them manually through the "Manage Auto-Links" page.

Click "Create Job" and you will be brought to the Manage Auto-Links page automatically to review your Job(s)

Manage Auto-Links

Each Job will have Task(s) within(IE Website/Email job includes 2 Tasks, the Website Task and the Email Task.  In this page, you can click on the Job to see the Task(s). 

Click on the Task to see the links created by that task. 

At that point you will see a list of all links created and you can choose to enable/disable/delete all of the links OR edit each link which will take you to the "Manage Links" page where you can activate or disable individually.  You can also delete the entire Job in the tasks window.

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Upload a CSV File

You can use a CSV file containing text phrase (web/email URL or any word or phrase), target link URL or page number, and hover tip popup(optional).

The file must be in the order of text to replace, target link URL (or absolute page number for internal links, eg first page = 0), hovertip(optional) and must NOT have a header row.  Also be sure the CSV is saved as Comma Delimited CSV and not another format of CSV.

EXAMPLE CSV TABLE

Creating the Job

You can get to the "Links" section through the top menu "Indexing" tab, or by choosing Tools>Add/Edit Links next to the mini-cover image of your Issue.

Click on Create Auto-Links tab and choose Title (if not already selected) and Issue. 

Select CSV File as your "Job Type" and type a name for this job. 

Click the Browse button and choose your CSV file.

Check the "Automatically Enable All Links Found" option if you would like all links created to be active.  If you don't check this option, you will need to review all of the links created by your job, and enable them manually through the "Manage Auto-Links" page.

Click "Create Job" and you will be brought to the Manage Auto-Links page automatically to review your Job(s)

Manage Auto-Links

Your CSV Job will contain a Task for each line in your CSV file, and each Task will contain one link.

Click on the Task to see the links created by that task. 

At that point you will see a list of all links created and you can choose to enable/disable/delete.  You can also delete the entire Job in the tasks window.

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Regular Expression (REGEX)

REGULAR EXPRESSION is a powerful and dynamic find and replace language you can use to create links in your publication.

EG. You could choose all instances of “MYCOMPANY” to become a link to the MYCOMPANY.COM website OR create dynamic links based on a product or inventory table in your publication (IE Product ABC-123456 will create a link www.mycompany.com/ABC-123456)

More Information on regular expressions can be found at the following websites:  

www.regular-expressions.info
www.zytrax.com/tech/web/regex.htm
geekswithblogs.net/brcraju/articles/235.aspx

Create a REGEX job

You can get to the "Links" section through the top menu "Indexing" tab, or by choosing Tools>Add/Edit Links next to the mini-cover image of your Issue.

Click on Create Auto-Links tab and choose Title (if not already selected) and Issue. 

Select Regular Expression as your "Job Type" and the required fields you need to fill out will appear

Job Name:

Type a meaningful name for this job(IE Product Code Link Job, Company Name Link Job) 

Search For: 

This is where you type your REGEX code. 

Simple REGEX:  This can be a simple word or phrase REGEX such as companyname, which will search for all instances of companyname and create a link.

To make the search smarter to find all instances whether upper or lower case characters, the REGEX would be:

[cC][oO][mM][pP][aA][nN][yY][nN][aA][mM][eE]

The above expression accounts for all lower and upper-case combinations
eg. companyname, CompanyName , ComPanYnaME

Dynamic REGEX: This can be a complex REGEX which will intelligently find and create links based on a certain format. Using the product code example above( ABC-123456), the REGEX would be:

[A-Za-z][A-Za-z][A-Za-z].[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]

This REGEX would recognize all codes listed below in the first column.

Replace With (link): 

This is the section where you designate what link to create when the REGEX finds a value. 

The First field is for the piece of the link that is NOT going to change.  Always start with at least http://

The Second field is for the dynamic part of the link that is going to be created based on the text the REGEX finds.  You can use the whole REGEX here or a subset of the REGEX.

The Third field is for any content that you would like to be appended to the end of the link.  This of course depends on the targets you are linking to. 

In the Simple REGEX example above, we just want a link to the companyname website so we would enter http://www.companyname.com in the First field.  No other fields are needed for this case.

In the Dynamic REGEX example above, we would need the base website address that will appear for all links created eg(http://www.companyname.com/) in the First field.  The Second Field is where you will enter the dynamic part of the link.  In this case you could include the REGEX, [A-Za-z][A-Za-z][A-Za-z].[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9],  in order to create the link based on that found text (EG http://www.companyname.com/ABC-123456).  Finally the Third field could include a webpage format (.htm,.html), OR referral or Affiliate script suffix (EG ?MygazinesReferral). 

The entire link using these values would be:

http://www.companyname.com/ABC-123456.htm

OR

http://www.companyname.com/ABC-123456?MygazinesReferral

Hovertip:

This is an optional field where you can enter a hovertip value for all of the links created.  If nothing is entered here, the hovertip will be the target link URL

Test Case:

In order to create a REGEX job, we must first make sure the search works. Enter some text that matches your defined REGEX. 

For the simple REGEX above, a test case that would pass could be companyname, CompanyName, or CoMpAnynAme.  Cmpanyname would not pass this test.

For the dynamic REGEX above, a test case that would pass could be abc-123456, ThR-534876, or BGr-098765. C-12345 would not pass the test.

The test case MUST pass before the Job can be created. 

Check the "Automatically Enable All Links Found" option if you would like all links created to be active.  If you don't check this option, you will need to review all of the links created by your job, and enable them manually through the "Manage Auto-Links" page.

Click "Create Job" and you will be brought to the Manage Auto-Links page automatically to review your Job(s)

Manage Auto-Links

Your REGEX Job will create a Task under which all of your links will be created (click on the Job to see the task)

Click on the Task to see the links created by that task. 

At that point you will see a list of all links created and you can choose to enable/disable/delete.  You can also delete the entire Job in the tasks window.

Video Tutorial

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