How to Copy Hyperlinks in PDF with 3 Easy Methods

A hyperlink in PDF documents can be a clickable text, image, or button that directs readers to another page or website. Copying a PDF link can be useful if you want to share the link with others or save it for future reference.

On this page, you’ll find many practical methods to copy hyperlinks in PDF, using different tools.

👉To save time, you can directly download the free PDF editor used for identifying links in PDF documents.

How to Copy Hyperlinks in PDF in Adobe Acrobat

It’s indeed strange that the flagship PDF editor software Adobe Acrobat doesn’t offer any intuitive approach to copying hyperlinks embedded in PDFs, and it’s not even available in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

But if you do have Acrobat Reader as your daily PDF reader application, here’s how to do so.

1. First of all, you need an Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription. Download and install Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe’s official website, if you haven’t already.

2. Go to the Adobe Edit PDF tool, and open the PDF with the links you want.

3. From the Edit PDF toolbar, click on the Link button and then select Add/Edit Web or Document Link.

4. From the PDF editor screen, find the link you need, right-click on it, choose Edit, and then Select Copy (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C).

5. That’s it! Now the PDF link is saved in your clipboard.

Copy Hyperlinks in PDF Using Chrome

The Chrome web browser now serves as more than a mere app for surfing the internet, it’s now even a competent PDF reader that allows you to do a variety of things, including highlighting PDFs, saving webpages as PDFs, rotating PDFs, and copying hyperlinks in PDFs.

Since copying hyperlinks in Chrome is quite intuitive, this is my personal favorite method.

1. Open Chrome browser on your Windows or Mac computer.

2. Drag and drop your PDF file with hyperlinks into Chrome.

3. Right-click on the hyperlink you need, and click Copy Link Address.

Copy Hyperlinks in PDF Using Microsoft Word

The renowned word processing program Microsoft Word has proven to be a practical tool to convert PDF to Word, insert images into PDF, edit text in PDF, and do many other things.

When you need a level of security, Microsoft Word even helps encrypt PDF documents. And today, regarding extracting hyperlinks in PDF, Microsoft Word is also quite useful. During the process of turning PDFs into editable Microsoft Word, the text formatting is retained, along with embedded hyperlinks.

However, considering that not all desktop devices come with the installation of Microsoft Word, this method works best for individuals with the purchase of Microsoft Office Suite.

1. Open Microsoft Word, go to File, select Open tab, and open the PDF file.

2. Click Yes when prompted that Word will convert PDF to Word.

3. Right-click on the hyperlink you need to copy, and select Copy Hyperlink from the dropdown.

Check Hyperlinks without Opening for Safety

Cybercriminals often use embedded links in PDFs to trick unsuspecting users into downloading viruses, malware, and other malicious software. They may also direct users to fake websites that look like legitimate sources and then steal sensitive personal and financial information.

Therefore, it is essential to check the links embedded in PDFs before opening them to avoid falling prey to these types of scams.

PDFgear Desktop allows you to check the actual URL embedded in the PDF file, allowing you to check whether the embedded hyperlinks are safe so as to steer clear of malicious or phishing websites.

Two Types of Hyperlinks in PDF

For your information, there are two types of hyperlinks used in PDF documents. The different types of hyperlinks function similarly to HTML anchors, allowing you to quickly navigate to a specific part of a webpage, or an external location.

Linking to an internal destination

• Linking to an ID
• Linking to a page number
• Linking to a page number with a predefined display ratio

Linking to an external destination

• Linking to an external file
• Linking to a website

FAQs

How to Copy PDF Links from Google?

You can also copy the link to web-hosted PDF files in Google search results, but it’s bothering that, for some users, if you directly click on the link on the search result, you don’t visit the PDF URL, instead, you download the PDF file. Here’s how to get around that:

In the search result, click on the triple dots icon next to the PDF file link. In the About this result window, right-click on the PDF link, and click Copy link address.

Can I copy a PDF link from a non-editable PDF?

Yes, you can copy a PDF link from both editable and non-editable PDFs. As long as the PDF contains a hyperlink, you should be able to copy the link by following the steps outlined above.

What can I do with a copied PDF link?

Once you’ve copied a PDF link, you can paste it into an email, document, or browser address bar to access the linked content. You can also share the link with others by sending it through email, instant message, or social media.

Can I share a PDF link with other people?

As long as the linked content is hosted online and accessible to the public, you can share a PDF link with someone who doesn’t have the PDF document. They can simply click on the link to access the content directly. However, if the linked content is not available online, the recipient would need access to the original PDF document to follow the link.

Conclusion

While the document format PDF doesn’t natively provide easy access to copying the embedded hyperlinks, there are many workarounds for us to achieve that.

However, as mentioned, it’s always important to check the safety of PDF hyperlinks before navigating to the website. PDF might contain malignant hyperlinks, especially the ones you receive from spam emails or downloaded from unverified websites.