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jhaystead
Participating Frequently
April 26, 2012
Answered

How to disable the blue highlight boxes around links?

  • April 26, 2012
  • 14 replies
  • 141292 views

I've created a document in InDesign CS5, and when viewed on Adobe Reader 10.2 (on an iPad) all the table of contents links within the document, and all links to external websites have a blue highlight field around them. While I appreciate the fact that it makes it obvious where links are, it looks remarkably ugly to have huge blue highlights all over the document. There must be a way to turn these highlights off, right? Either from the source document within InDesign before the PDF is created, or from within Adobe Reader or Acrobat after the PDF is made? I have all the links within InDesign set to "Invisible Rectangle", and it looks great when viewed on older versions of Adobe Reader or in iBooks. Unfortunately, older versions of Adobe Reader don't support hyperlinks on tablets. So somebody using Reader 10.2, however, is now forced to view this document with ugly blue highlights. Is the only option to avoid the highlights to recommend everyone use iBooks to view the document, or is there a way in Reader 10.2 to disable these?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer fasinfrank

    This worked for me in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC:

    1. Go to Tools

    2. Click on Prepare Form

    3. Click on More next to the hammer and wrench icon

    4. Click on highlight existing fields

    14 replies

    Show previous replies
    S
    smizy
    Inspiring
    September 15, 2016

    I'm still trying to solve this. Anyone have any info?

    I tried above method but could not find 'select objects'

    I am also unable to right click the blue boxes.

    I am sending my pdf's out to various mobile users and need these to go away! The local setting under preference only works locally and is of no help to me as my mobile users don't have the option available to turn this off.

    PLEASE HELP

    K
    kaleyl53771831
    Participating Frequently
    September 15, 2016

    I did finally find a solution to this on another thread.

    Go to Tools - JavaScript - Document JavaScripts and create a new doc-level script. Remove any code that is generated by default and paste the below code:

    app.runtimeHighlight = false;

    You can enable it as a doc-level script in your file.

      S
      smizy
      Inspiring
      September 15, 2016

      Kaley,

      thanks so much! Unfortunately I did not notice this was for adobe reader, I am using adobe acrobat standard DC. I do not have the option in tools to go to javascript so I'm a bit lost as to where to input the command.

      I'll continue to poke around to try to find the right place, if any one knows please let me know.

      di3k45789d93k34j89
      di3k45789d93k34j89
      New Participant
      November 2, 2015

      I have a possible solution.

      1. Go to Edit > Preferences
      2. In the Preferences window, under Categories on the left, select "Forms" from the list
      3. Under the Highlight Color section on the right, uncheck the box "Show border hover color for fields"
      4. Click OK

      This removed all these big blue boxes that were essentially completely covering up the PDF document I was trying to read. Hopefully this works for jhaystead‌, martienyland‌, Alex MEV‌.

        K
        kaleyl53771831
        Participating Frequently
        December 10, 2015

        I thought this was going to be a great fix, but once you send it out, it uses the default preferences on other peoples reader. A big, blue, box.

        A
        Alex MEV
        New Participant
        September 15, 2015

        3 years later... still appears to be an issue?

          ~graffiti
          ~graffiti
          Brainiac
          April 27, 2012

          Something to try.

          In InDesign, Open the hyperlinks panel, select all of the links, click the dropdown menu and choose "hyperlink options". Under "Appearance>Type" choose "invisible rectangle".

          J
          jhaysteadAuthor
          Participating Frequently
          April 27, 2012

          Thanks, but I already have all the hyperlinks set to "Invisible Rectangle", and there are still blue highlight fields around the links in Reader 10.2. If I view the PDF in other programs (iBooks, older versions of Reader) the links appear without the blue highlights. All the research I've done on this seems to point to the blue highlight fields being a "feature" of Reader 10.2, but I can't imagine that Adobe would create a feature with such a visual impact on documents without offering the option to turn that feature off? In a lot of print, online, and interactive docs both text and images are used as links (icons, buttons, etc) and having an automatic blue highlight around them really takes away from the visual impact that graphics provide. There must be an option somewhere to disable or turn these off, but I haven't been able to find it yet. Any other suggestions/ideas?

          M
          martienyland
          Participating Frequently
          December 18, 2012

          Dear cjhaystead, I have the same problem and can't find the solution. Dit you find it?

          Thanks a lot in advance!

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