Resolving issue of losing links when saving word document to PDF in Mac

Background

I had a word document already saved in my dropbox which was initially created on windows I think. When I moved to mac I could open the same document in mac word with links working just fine. Now I edited the doc and exported it as PDF. On opening the PDF I realized the links do not work though it gets displayed a hyperlink in the PDF. After bit of poking around I found out it is an known issue. In this post I provide an alternative approach that worked for me.

Making the links work in PDF

• I had word document of following format - Microsoft Word 97 - 2004 document - 61 KB
• Open pages app in your mac and open your word doc in it.
  
  
  
  
• Verify all links are working. If you need to edit you can edit it here.
• Save the opened document as pages document. Its format would be - Pages Publication - 271 KB
• Next reopen this pages document and go to File -> Export to -> PDF and save it as PDF. Links should work now.