InDesign hyperlink working within InDesign not working in pdf

Hi ​@dt0245d3009278,

Thanks for sharing the details, and sorry to hear you’re running into this issue.

I tested the same workflow on my end using InDesign 21.3 on Windows 11, and the hyperlinks worked as expected in all cases, without color, with color, and even with character and paragraph styles applied.

Could you please confirm your exact InDesign version and OS details? Also, let me know if this is happening only with this specific document. It would help if you could test the same setup in a newly created document and check if the issue appears there as well.

If it works fine in a new document, then as the expert suggests, please try saving the affected file as IDML, reopen the IDML, save it again as a new INDD file, and then test the export again.

If the issue still persists, please share the file with me via DM by clicking on my name and selecting Message. Make sure to package the file before sharing using the steps here: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/preflighting-files-handoff.html#package_files, and you can use any publicly available file sharing services like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

Maybe I came across this before, if my memory is correct, when you apply a colour through a character style it "breaks" the invisible clickable box that InDesign creates during the PDF export. The PDF sees the text, but the link anchor gets buried under the formatting.

Turn off "Shared Destination" This is usually the main culprit. Open your Hyperlinks panel, double-click your link, and uncheck the "Shared Hyperlink Destination" box. It often clears up the conflict immediately.

The "Interactive" Export Make sure you’re exporting as Adobe PDF (Interactive) rather than "Print." If you absolutely have to use Print, double-check that "Include Hyperlinks" is actually ticked in the export settings.

Try clearing all formatting from the text first, create the hyperlink on plain text, check if the link works in the PDF - and then go back and apply your colour style and see if it works in the PDF. 

"No Language" Trick weirdly InDesign’s spellcheck/language might be at play. Try setting the character style for that link to Language: [No Language] in the Advanced Character Formats tab.

Which version of InDesign are you seeing this issue? If this is a bug then you should be able to reproduce this in a new document as well, you can share that. If you are unable to do this in a new document maybe this is document corruption of some sort, try exporting to IDML and resaving back to INDD