PDFs are great for sharing information. And hyperlinks are great for increasing readability!
Links are much more user-friendly than footnotes, references, endnotes, and any other way to add supplemental information within a PDF document.
It’s much more convenient for the reader to be able to open the hyperlinks as they’re reading through your PDF. As opposed to having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the PDF file to see the web page references and links.
So, adding hyperlinks within your documents will help save both your time as well as the readers.
And below, we’ll show you all the different ways you can create and add hyperlinks within your PDF documents. With all the different tools and ways to edit PDF hyperlink configurations.
You are about to find out:
- Why Add Hyperlinks to a PDF Document?
- How to Add a Hyperlink To a PDF With Google Docs
- How to Add a Hyperlink to a PDF Document Using MS Word
- Adding a Hyperlink To a PDF File Using Adobe Acrobat
- Adding a Hyperlink to a PDF File Using PDFelement Pro
- Adding a Hyperlink to a PDF File Using Foxit Phantom PDF Editor
- How to Edit PDF Hyperlinks Online
- How to Change Link Appearance On the PDF Document
Why Add Hyperlinks to a PDF Document?
Why add links in the first place?
Here are a few reasons:
- Ease of navigation: Hyperlinks are super helpful for enhancing your reader’s overall viewing experience, as the unnecessary hassle of scrolling through a PDF document is easily eliminated. This navigation tool gives your reader the freedom to explore within the document and jump directly to their preferred destination. Scanning through with the simple option of clicking on the highlighted PDF text.
- Conciseness: For conciseness of document pages, you could place hyperlinks to external information through website links or other documents.
- Clarity: Modifying your document section to include hyperlinks could promote clarity, as they serve as references to other pages or sections within and outside your document. To insert hyperlinks into texts, words, or phrases inside your document, you would need to be aware of its purpose.
- Order: Whether you would like to add clickable external resources from your website into your files, or you want to save readers’ time linking the headings of sections in said file. Including hyperlinks in PDF documents present a form of sophistication and orderliness in the dissemination of written content or text. Luckily, it is not complicated to figure out how to do so.
Now, let’s take a look at some best practices on how to add hyperlinks to your PDF documents.
How to Add a Hyperlink To a PDF With Google Docs
Google Docs has a lot of features to help you edit, share, and create digital documents.
If you work with G Suite daily, you’ll definitely want to know how to add links in your documents before sharing them.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Open Google Docs on your web browser.
- Create or add the contents of your PDF.
- Select and highlight the word or phrase you wish to hyperlink and click on Ctrl+K or the Link icon in the Toolbar.

How to Add a Hyperlink to a PDF Document Using MS Word
If you prefer MS Word over Google Docs, you can also add or edit hyperlinks within your PDF documents the same way.
With Word though, you can also add different kinds of hyperlinks and references based on different documents or links.
In Word, you can add links to:
- Existing file or web page.
- Places in your open MS Word document.
- New document.
- Email address.
Below, we’ll cover all hyperlink usecases.
Here is a step by step guide:
- Open MS Word.
- Click on the “File” option and select the PDF document you wish to make alterations to.
- Highlight the word or phrase you want to use as Hyperlink.
- Click on the “Insert” tab and click Link icon or press CTRL+K.

- A dialogue box will pop up on your screen on the left side. Select the type of object you want to link the word to and fill in the relevant information.

Here’s an overview of the other kinds of hyperlinks you can add within MS Word:
Link to existing file or web page in Word
This option links your text to external resources from a website or existing document in your files.
For instance, if you wish to write an article on “How to Cross the street”, you might want to give your reader the option of accessing more information about the subject on the world wide web without bulking up the page.
Or you could link the text to an existing file on your PC, such that once the reader clicks on the highlighted link, the file automatically opens.
Link to a place in your Word document as a hyperlink
In order to help your reader, navigate within the document with ease and speed, you could create a hyperlink connecting the table of contents to their respective headings. This gives your reader control over their reading adventures and saves time.
Insert hyperlink to create a new document:
You can link your selected heading or text to a blank page while you edit the properties of the said page by adding content to it. Just like for existing documents, your reader would be directed to external resources located in another folder.
Insert E-mail address as a hyperlink in Word
Display important contact information for correspondence with reader by inserting a link to chosen email address.
Understand that these steps only relate to users of recent versions of the Microsoft Word software, from 2016. However, if you use older versions of this software, you would need to convert your PDF files into Word documents using online conversion tools such as;
- PDFescape
- Blue Beam
- Cisdem (for MAC users only)
- Readiris (for PC users)