Lion: Print to PDF looses URL links

[DC01]

Hi !

Printing to PDF from Safari before 10.7 resulted in a PDF containing all links in an executable form: they just worked as expected.

With 10.7 these links are omitted. They still look like links, but clicking on them does not work nor the cursor changes.

I used to archive scientific articles this way which does not work without the links still being active.

How can I restore active links ?

Thanks !

 

[ffransis]

Not just Safari

The problem is not specific to Safari; it appears also in Mail. Text Edit, however, preserves clickable URLs, although in my case it strips the underlining and colour in the PDF output, leaving the link as plain text.

I cannot comment on other applications, as so far all I've done is set up a new Mac Mini, and have yet to install any third party applications.

 

[DC01]

Not just Safari, but WebKit

It looks like the reason is a change in WebKit. All Apps using WebKit to display documents changed their behavior, I believe, because I do have the same issues now with 10.6, after installing the latest Safari update...

 

[johannnn]

I did a PDF of a google search page to test this, and it seems that links works for everything that is typed as an url. So in the google search, the green text below the title of each hit is clickable, and so is the current url that is put at the bottom left corner of each PDF.

You ask how to restore the feature? File a bug report.

 

[DC01]

@poobear:
Yes, but that is not a link on the web page (try to click it in your browser - it is not active). What you see here is the ability of your PDF viewer to detect URLs in a written text...

 

[ffransis]

A change in WebKit makes sense, as the cause of the problem. But whatever the technicalities, the loss of clickable embedded links is a significant loss of functionality in the operating system. PDF generation and rendering has always been a major strength of OS X, and the ability to archive hypertext documents in PDF format is one of those things that has Microsoft Windows users in the business world jealous of Mac users.

I trust that this is merely an oversight on the part of OS X developers, and the error can be corrected in 10.7.1.

It looks like the reason is a change in WebKit. All Apps using WebKit to display documents changed their behavior, I believe, because I do have the same issues now with 10.6, after installing the latest Safari update...

 

[DC01]

Traced things in nightly builds

I traced things down to a Safari bug introduced April 6th.
Nightly build 83010 works, 83080 does not.

I filed a bug report which is still dormand:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65076

The problem: nobody picked up that bug for about 2 months.
So don't expect a solution soon. Perhaps we should start to be
a bit more vocal at the Safari team ...

 

[ffransis]

Indeed we should. I have no experience of interacting with the OS X development community, but it looks as if you do. How best to approach this?

As a workaround, I'm currently using the pdfdownload.org browser applet provided by NitroPDF. But it takes an age to process even the simplest web page, and is therefore not a solution to the problem.

Francis

 

[drayon]

OP-download 'Omniweb' and use the following key stroke to save the page as. PDF

Command+Option+Shift+S

This is actually different (formatting) than the Print 'Save as PDF'.

 

[DC01]

@ ffransis

While it seems that I might know a bit, it was just mere googling, exploring and a bit of good luck. How to respond to this in an effective way ? I am still trying. Perhaps file some more bug reports on this ? Perhaps mail some of the Safari developers ? I am not sure. Perhaps

http://www.webkit.org/​

is a good place to start. I still hope someone from Apple stumbles over our posts and takes action.

----------

OP-download 'Omniweb' and use the following key stroke to save the page as. PDF

Command+Option+Shift+S

This is actually different (formatting) than the Print 'Save as PDF'.

Thanks for the tip. It works and is a partial solution.

The main issue: most rss-feed readers use webkit. Switching to OmniWeb means to change your RSS-Feed habits quite drastically.