How to (totally) disable hyperlinks in a PDF?

[Ferencvaros86]

Hello.

Is it possible to export a PDF from InDesign and disable all hyperlinks, so that they are not clickable from any reader at all? 

I do see that there is an export option to not to include any hyperlinks/interactive elements, but that doesn't work everywhere. For example, I can make the link https://www.adobe.com unactive (unclickable) when viewing the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, but if I load the same PDF in the Chrome browser then the hyperlink is active.

[Danielle383890353ilv]

Flatten the pdf.  File - Print - Microsoft Print to PDF - Print.  Save your file.  

As for why someone would remove remove hyperlinks and such, here's an example.  The NIH does not allow them on documents uploaded as part of grant proposal.  Yes, it's silly and annoying that this is the case, but you have to format your documents they way they want them if you want to submit your grant application.  And sometimes, like in a bibliography, the URL is the only thing to reference, so you can't just totally remove it, but they won't let it be clickable.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

All understood - technical and regulatory issues included - but it's worth noting that a fully flattened PDF is an image of a document's pages, no longer live text that can be searched, read by accessibility tools or otherwise used by anything but eyeballs... and is often orders of magnitude bulkier.

The PDF non-standard really needs a doc level toggle for things like "do not parse links." Instead we have stone-age workarounds.

[Tina38163619sjtw]

Correct.  And, while docs w/hyperlinks are banned, they must remain searchable.  I beloieve there is an option under "Edit" to remove hyperlinks but when I run it, it tells me it finds none; yet, there they are!  Also, one of the exhibits was old and the text was searchable, but not editable but the links still worked so I actually had to edit with Microsoft Paint and erase the periods that connected the link.  I was running out of time.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

To go around the circle one more time, any text that follows the model of a valid URL will be detected and given an active link by the reader... regardless of what the document contains or how it is formatted. It's "a feature."

The only solution is to manually obfuscate the links so that no process in the chain will detect and convert them.

Such as https://www.google.com vs. https://www.google. com .

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

NM. The interface here is too "smart" to fool with most link obfuscation.

[Willi Adelberger]

Never use Print or Microsoft Print to PDF with InDesign. Use only export to PDF. Printing to PDF in any way must be avoided as it creates PDFs with a bad structure and minor quality.

[T@ny@nyu]

If you export the PDF as a JPEG, and then convert the jpeg file(s) back to a PDF, it should disable the hyperlinks, even in a browser. 

[BobLevine]

That is a horrific idea and will turn the entire thing into nothing but a picture. I'm locking this discussion as it's been asked and answered.