Unable to Establish a Relative Link

[bmusbach]

I am using a Windows 11 machine with LibreOffice version 24.8.0.3.
I have a folder containing nothing but pdf documents. One of the documents is to serve as an index to the remaining ones.
Ultimately, I would like to use this folder as a template and copy to other folders, while retaining the relative links to work within their own folder.
There are no plans to utilize the internet for this project.

While trying to troubleshoot my failures thus far, I have read the following LibreOffice OPTIONS - LOAD/SAVE - GENERAL settings should be in place:
“Save URLs relative to file system”
“Save URLs relative to internet”
The above settings have been confirmed to be checked and active.

I am trying to establish a relative link from the index to one of the other pdfs using the following procedure:

1. Text is highlighted in the ‘index’ pdf
2. Select ‘Insert’ from the LibreOffice heading
3. Select ‘Hyperlink’
4. Select the ‘Document icon’ from new window operation
5. Under ‘Document/Path’, the path (absolute) is selected and then edited to remove all but the folder name and target pdf
6. (Note: the 'Text" field in the operation window is correctly populated with target pdf name)
7. Select ‘OK’

‘CTRL-Click’ on the index field name returns the following error:
“(relative file).pdf” cannot be passed to an external application to open it.
The error message further suggests the path is not absolute or the file does not exist.

Apparently, I have a syntax error, but have unsuccessfully tried several things.
Any assistance someone could provide would be greatly appreciated and please accept my sincere thanks in advance.

[ajlittoz]

You tagged common which suggests your problem is “common” to Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math and Writer (out of which Base and Math can be ruled out). It is not clear from your description which component (application) you are using.

You reference pdf files which can’t be manipulated by LO. The only exception is Draw accepts to edit PDFs in a limited way considering every page to be a graphical collection of shapes, most of them being text boxes.

Independently from @Regina’s caveat, it would help if you improved your description by adding technical details such as the application name and you better explained the ultimate goal (what your users are expected to do with the documents, what clicking on a link results in, …)

[Regina]

Do not try to edit the path manually. The path is always shown as absolute path, but in fact it is relative if your settings and the setting in the PDF export (tab Links) are set to produce a relative link. In the hyperlink dialog, only use the button to generate the hyperlink to the file.

Problems with the way relative link vs absolute link is handled by LibreOffice are tracked in bug tdf#11957 and the there mentioned “see also” bugs.

To test that the links are indeed relative, copy the documents into a different folder.