Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 1, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Gary wants to link from an Excel worksheet to a specific page in a PDF file. He can get Excel to link to the PDF, but it starts on the first page of the PDF, not the page he wants. Gary believes that Excel is ignoring the PDF command that tells it the page he wants. As an example, he can use the formula =HYPERLINK("E:\\test\gary.pdf#5") and Excel ignores the #5 part and opens to the first page of the PDF.
This does, indeed, seem to be the case, Gary. The HYPERLINK worksheet function seems to ignore the page specification for some strange reason. There also doesn't seem to be a way around this problem with the function.
Fortunately, you can use a macro to do the opening, if you desire. The following macro relies upon Internet Explorer to open the PDF and display the proper page:
Sub OpenPDFpage()
Dim myLink As String
Dim TargetPage As Double
Dim objIE As New InternetExplorer
myLink = "path/filename.pdf"
TargetPage = 7 'Page number to be shown
With objIE
.Navigate myLink & "#page=" & TargetPage
.Visible = True
End With
End Sub
The code could also be rather easily changed to a function to which you can pass the desired path and target page.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3350) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.
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2021-09-30 16:27:07
Jasmine
Is there a way to use the same instance of IE to run this function, rather than having it open 5 instances of IE when I run the function 5 times to navigate to various pages?
Thanks in advance
2019-07-30 11:32:06
Tony
Compile Error:
User-defined type not defined
2019-06-01 13:59:33
Bob
I have tried it as well and each time it opens to page 1 in Adobe instead of the correct page in I.E.
Thoughts?
2019-03-08 19:01:33
jon
Allen,
I have tried this VBA code with a couple of times and with alterations too and it will not open to a specific page.
jon
2019-02-09 14:46:49
Ron S
Since this article was last updated in 2018, it would be nice to know if it continues to work in the ribbon versions ... I assume it does, but it would be nice to have confirmation in your "applies to ..." list
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