Linking to a Specific Page in a PDF File

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 1, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

5

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:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3350) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is two more than 7?

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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