I am attempting to find an elegant solution to an issue for another department within my agency, and I am hoping somebody can provide me with a path to discovering the right solution.
The problem: The user currently has large number of links which (A) deliver the user to a page within the document, and then (B) open a web link. The Link Properties are currently as follows:
There are a large number of links within this document which point to the same place (frustratingly, this is simply how they've decided to do it, and there is no swaying them in that regard), and many times, the text pointing to the link is different (i.e. "visit this link" and "refer to form 10-a for more info" both point to the same URL).
What I would like to do for them is provide them with some sort of search & replace function, or a batch process of some kind, which will search the link properties for all existing links in any given document, allow them to input the currently existing URL, and replace it with another URL of their choice. As it currently stands, they must edit each link manually, which poorly impacts their manhours.
I have been all through Adobe's help materials, and while I found them to be useful in other tasks I might wish to do, I'm not seeing a way to specifically address the issue of searching and replacing Actions within a Link Properties. I would be rather surprised if this was not something that Adobe will allow me to do, and I am fairly certain I'm simply not finding a way to articulate my need in a search engine friendly way that will find what I am looking for.
One caveat: if no solution exists within Adobe itself, a third party tool is not an option. I work for a government agency, so nifty third party tools are strictly forbidden.
With Adobe Acrobat and only Acrobat, assuming that 3rd party plugins have the same restrictions as other software, the only API you have at your disposal is Acrobat JavaScript and unfortunately, JavaScript can't interrogate the link to find it's properties, it can only set them or reset them.