As you may or may not know, Illustrator will make any URLs in documents its creates ‘clickable’ – that is to say anything identified as a website address or an email address will launch a viewers web browser or default email program when they are clicked (and the cursor changes to a pointing finger when these elements are hovered too).
Now while that’s create, sometimes you want to make other things clickable in PDFs – in fact I highly recommend making everything relevant clickable as who knows where your PDFs will end up (they are after all design to be portable: Portable Document Format) and embedding links is a great way to direct readers to your website or other relevant resource.
If you’re looking for a good guide to Illustrator I recommend: Illustrator CC: Visual QuickStart Guide
How to Create Hyperlinks in Illustrator PDFs
In this example I am going to make a logo clickable using a very simple trick:
Step 1: Locate the artwork you want to be a clickable (made in to a hyperlink):
Step 2: Type the URL you want to link to using the text tool:
Step 3: Stretch the URL so it covers the element that you want to clickable:
Step 4: Make the URL completely transparent (important – do not simply set the color to transparent, this will break the link – it needs to be a color with 0% opacity):
Step 5: Save as a PDF as you normally would and enjoy the clickable joy!
Just to re-iterate, do not attempt to make transparent link text by setting the color to transparent in the color selector like this:
Set a solid color (e.g. black) and then use the opacity to make it invisible, otherwise the link will not work:
this doesn’t work
Hi Michael,
This works perfectly for me – which version of Illustrator are you using? I’m on CS6.
Thanks! It worked for me (I’m using CC). One thing I would add is if you want to add a tracking link to a spelled out url (not a graphic), you have to turn the type into outlines, otherwise it grabs both URLs.
THANK YOU! I’ve read a few extremely convoluted and time consuming tutorials. I am making a document with 30+ links and there was no way I was going through all that hullabaloo. This was a great quick trick and it WORKED!
Hey Betty, thanks for the thanks!
Thanks Man!
I tried slicing and attributes, but didn’t work.
This one worked.
(Y)
Hey Rasam,
Glad it help! Thanks for the thanks! 🙂
LEGEND!!!!
Thank you so much, I’ve spent all morning using the slice technique (that doesnt work)
Life saver.
Worked Like a Charm! To make it less confusing I just collected all hyperlink overlay text onto a separate layer. I would have NEVER guessed it was this easy. I also tried creating slices but they did not work.
Hey Bob Mckay,
How can we open _blank(target) page using this method?
Great!
I have a problem, in adobe pdf i can’t open the link. Suggestions?
Hi Serena,
Do you mean Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat? If you open the PDF on a browser such as ‘edge’, do the links work there?
Hi Bob!
On browser it works. I tried again in Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Acrobat for Pc and it works.
I have any problem in pdf reader for mobile (WPS Office, Visualizzatore PDF for Drive, Adobe Acrobat, Visualizzatore PDF for Dropbox, Visualizzatore PDF for Google).
Hi Serena,
Looks like a quirk of the mobile reader then I’m afraid, all I can suggest is make sure you’re using a chunky font for the link text and maybe double them up (make two links) to make a better target area
I normally don’t leave a comment because I am so lazy. But your method is really simple and solved the problem. I don’t quite understand why people teach this in a hard way.
Thank you, I tried other methods to no avail, but this worked and was easy!
Hey! The whole process works up until I click on the link, it won’t take me to my page. I noticed that Illustrator changed the URL of my link. When it loads in the browser it is a slightly different link. I’m guessing that’s what is causing it not to work?
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Hi Camilla,
Without seeing the URL its hard to say – does it have any unusual characters in it? You should try using a URL shortening service to give you a simpler URL to put in your document.
Bob
Hey – this is super! Thanks. Much easier than Image Map. In regards to another comment – any way to make this open in a new page/tab? (incorporate _blank). I know that is probably not likely with this simple trick but thought I’d ask if anyone has figured it out. Thanks again.
It’s working on chrome n Internet explorer n all browser except Mozilla Firefox. Thanx