Hovering over the links in the index file shows the absolute path is stored rather than the relative path from the location of the index file and so the links break as the person will have another folder structure than the creator. For more information, see Can't find Office applications in Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7. However when the distribution is unpacked and the index PDF is opened by a person other than the creator the links don't work. Windows 10 doesn’t pin the Office apps to the Start menu or the Taskbar by default, but there are a few ways to find and open Office applications from the Start screen and taskbar in Windows 10. The creator can correctly access the folders/documents via the 'index' file.
The distribution can then be sent, unpacked and all components accessed via the one index file. The idea is to create a complete distribution (one zip file holding the tree structure) with index file (in PDF), folders and documents in the various folders. The index file sits in the 'root' folder together with all the folders that hold the various documents.
We create an 'index' file in Word that holds hyperlinks to folders on the local Windows file system.
