A method and apparatus for locating items on a physical document and a method for creating a geographical link from an electronic document to the physical document. The geographical link is created by encoding, in a geographic link to the physical document, geographic coordinates of a referenced item in the electronic document. The electronic document is not derived from the physical document. Locating items on the physical document includes calibrating an opto-touch foil that is aligned on the physical document, including processing a calibration location included in locations appearing in the physical document and referred to in the electronic document. For each location, foil coordinates of the opto-touch foil corresponding to where each location appears in the physical document are computed utilizing geographic coordinates of each location and a generated calibration relationship between the geographic coordinates of the calibration location and calibration foil coordinates of the opto-touch foil.