External links are not preserved

[wq9578]

It looks like that the FPDI library doesn't preserve external links, see: atgp/factur-x#12 (comment)
In this case a PDF/A document is generated.
Is there any working solution implemented?

[JanSlabon]

Yep, this is currently the normal behavior.

Anyhow, we plan to add support for external links in the first quater of 2023.

The implementation of mPDF is a good start but it's not feature complete and we know situations where it will fail.

[ww-ysg]

Hi Jan,

hope you had a good week so far!
Can you give an update regarding this issue?

Best Regards,
Yasin

[JanSlabon]

Thanks for the reminder and sorry for the delay. Can you please provide test files, which we can add to the test-suite?

[ww-ysg]

Hi Jan,

thanks for your quick response. Since the documents are part of an intranet they are confidential.
However we created test PDF files and were able to reproduce the error with them.

first_file.pdf
second_file.pdf
merged_file.pdf

The first and second file have the same content. The Links in question are "typo3.org" wich links to "https://typo3.org/typo3-cms/" and "TYPO3-Lizenz (GNU/GPL)" which links to "https://typo3.org/typo3-cms/overview/licenses/".

In the merged file the link stylings are still present, but the links are gone. The text "typo3.org" is a domain and the PDF still recognize it as a link, but instead of directing to "https://typo3.org/typo3-cms/" it links to "http://typo3.org".

Also as a side note our customer noticed a black line at the end of the merged file.

Thanks,
Yasin

[JanSlabon]

We're already working on it and will push a branch in the next week. We're currently writing tests and we're still open for foreign test documents.

Yours is working without a problem. This is an example of several (more special) documents merged + yours: concatenate.pdf

I cannot see any black line in your merged_file.pdf? I can only guess that you are using TCPDF which adds empty headers and footers. To disable them, just call:

$pdf->SetPrintHeader(false);
$pdf->setPrintFooter(false);

[ww-ysg]

Thanks!

$pdf->SetPrintHeader(false);
$pdf->setPrintFooter(false);

Setting the values worked!

[JanSlabon]

We just prepared PR #174 which will allow you to import external links with FPDI but I would like to get some tests and feedback before merging this.

Thanks! @ww-ysg @wq9578 @JesusLopezMadrid @pionl

[ww-ysg]

Thanks Jan!

I've tested the fix in our development environment and my tests were successfull.
We now added the fix to the testing system of the customer and await their feedback.

[ww-ysg]

Hi Jan,

we got Feedback from our customer. So far everything worked great.

Best Regards,
Yasin

[JanSlabon]

PR is merged and a new release will follow in the next days.

[JanSlabon]

FPDI 2.4.0 with support for import of external links is released ;-)