SuperMemo and links to PDF pages

I have recently started using SuperMemo for Windows and SuperMemo Assistant in order to try incremental reading from PDF files.

When you extract some text from a PDF file, a new topic is created containing the extracted text and its metadata.

Unfortunately, SuperMemo Assistant does not create automatically a link to the PDF page from which the text was extracted (18th in our example). In the Link field only a link to the PDF file is created automatically.

However the link value can be edited by opening the references window (right click on the element window > Reference > Edit).

A link to a specific PDF page can be be created by adding the following string at the end of the URL:

#page=pageNumber (#page=18 in our example)

After clicking OK the following window appears and we can click again OK because we want to change the Link value of only this element.

Finally, the page link has been created!

You can automate the whole process by using the following AutoHotkey script:

; add PDF page number on the reference - ctrl + shift + alt + r
^+!r::
{
InputBox, pdfPage, AutoHotKey message, Enter the PDF page number 
;open commander
send, ^{Enter}
send, r
send, {Enter}
send, {Down}
send, {Down}
send, {Down}
send, {Down}
send, {End} 
sleep, 100
send, {#}page=
send, %pdfPage%
send, !{Enter}
sleep, 100
send, {Enter}
}
Return

The process of activating the link is more tricky!

You first need to view the element on the Presentation mode (Esc) and then click on the link. On the editor mode you cannot click on the link.

Surprisingly after clicking nothing apparently happens. However if you then right click while the mouse pointer is on top of the link you will see the following menu:

After clicking on “Open in new Window” the PDF file will open in your browser at the specific page!

If you click on “Open” from the same contextual menu you will get the error message “Interface not supported”:

However, if you have installed the Acrobat Reader on your computer the PDF file will again open at the specific page using Adobe Reader embedded in SuperMemo. I did not expect this!

If you click on “Open in new Window” from the following contextual menu the PDF, while being on the Editing mode file, will NOT open at the specific page.

I hope you will find this post useful!