Search code examples
pdflatex

How to get rid of the red box around hyperlink in PDF?

I have a pdf file obtained from the network and it has red boxes around links.

enter image description here

How can I get rid of them? How can I view the document without them?

P.S. Something that I found:

  • pdf is probably generated by latex,

  • non-commercial software is limited in modifying the document.

Update:

Facts disagree with the opinion that only author can change the way pdf looks. Below is an example of the same document in google chrome.

enter image description here

Solution

  • There is no equivalent to CSS in PDFs. In general, you will have to visit every annotation on every page to find the link annotations and make them all invisible. There are two ways to make link annotation borders invisible, per my reading of the PDF Reference.

    1. remove the 'C' entry for every link annotation. Or make it an empty array.
    2. Add or modify the 'BS' dictionary entry to add a 'W' entry with a value of 0.

    To actually implement this process, you would need a library that can open the PDF, modify its PDF Objects, and re-save it.