One of the questions we receive quite frequently is about creating hyperlinks to the sections of a brief. With electronic filing of briefs now required, and with hyperlinks required as part of electronic filing, this is something every attorney filing appellate briefs in Arkansas must know.
We’ve put together a short set of instructions for hyperlinking. For this example, we are using the Supreme Court’s model brief. We use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, but any modern PDF editing program (such as Foxit PhantomPDF; Nuance Power PDF) has the same functionality, and works basically the same way.
Step 1: Open the Hyperlinks Toolbar
In the “Find Your Tools Here” box (which is in the upper right-hand corner), type “link.”
Step 2: Open the Links Tool
Click on the word “Link,” and then select “Add/Edit Web or Document Link.”
Step 3: Select the Area for Your Link
Draw a box around the area that will link to the section of the brief.
Step 4: Select the Options for Your Link
For “Link Type,” select “Invisible Rectangle.” For “Highlight Style,” select “None.” (Once you have selected these once, these should be the defaults from now on.) Then click the “Next” button.
Step 5: Select the Destination for Your Link
Use the scroll bar to find the destination for your link. Once you have done this, click the “Set Link” button.
That’s it! The rules require that you create a link for each “major section” of the brief (Informational statement and jurisdictional statement; Points on appeal; Table of authorities; Abstract; Statement of the Case; Argument; and Addendum) although we typically link to the individual components of these (such as the direct examination of a particular witness or the individual points in our argument).
ArkansasAppeals.com 