Hyperlink (PDF)
Clickable links embedded inside a PDF that jump to web addresses, other pages in the same document, or external files.
PDF hyperlinks are clickable regions in a document that, when activated in a PDF viewer, navigate somewhere — typically a URL on the web, a different page in the same PDF (internal link), or another file. They work like HTML anchors but live inside a PDF's layer of annotations.
Kinds of PDF hyperlinks
- External URLs — open a web page in the default browser (`https://example.com`)
- Internal jumps — scroll to a named anchor or page number inside the same PDF (table of contents entries, footnote back-references)
- Email addresses — open the default mail client with a pre-filled recipient (`mailto:name@example.com`)
- File references — open another file on the reader's system (increasingly disabled by modern viewers for security)
How hyperlinks survive edits
Most PDF edits preserve hyperlinks:
- Merging PDFs keeps each source's links intact in the combined output
- Splitting keeps links whose target lies within the same output file; cross-file internal jumps may break
- Compression usually preserves link rectangles
- Conversion to image (rasterization) destroys hyperlinks — the links are part of the annotation layer, not the pixel layer
Security note
Hyperlinks in a PDF from an untrusted source should be treated with caution, same as email links. A PDF link can point to a phishing site just as easily as a legitimate one. Modern PDF viewers typically show the target URL before following it — verify before clicking.