[Tex/LaTex] How to disable links completely using hyperref package

hyperref

A have a LaTeX paper I want to submit to the EDAS system. EDAS doesn't want papers to have links and suggests to 'remove the hyperref package from your file'. However, if I do that, my compilation breaks because of some hyperref options in my tex files (and also \url definitions, I think).

I want to keep everything as it is, and just disable the linking feature of hyperref to create a link-free version of my PDF. How can I do this?

Following the hyperref documentation I did \usepackage[draft]{hyperref}, and that seems to work. But that doesn't seem to be the official way. And I don't want to test multiple times if EDAS accepts it or not, because all authors get notified each time I submit a new version. Also, the [draft] option doesn't remove the PDF bookmarks either, which EDAS also doesn't want.

Best Answer

Thanks to @egreg, the recipe is

\usepackage[options]{nohyperref}  % This makes hyperref commands do nothing without errors
\usepackage{url}  % This makes \url work

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[Tex/LaTex] Selectively turn off hyperref links

Instead of \ref* use \@refstar:

\makeatletter
\let\ref\@refstar
\makeatother

Why? hyperref redefines \ref this way.

\DeclareRobustCommand\ref{\@ifstar\@refstar\T@ref}%

\@ifstar is a LaTeX command which tests if the next character is a *. In this case the * would be gobbled and the first of the following commands will be executed (\@refstar), otherwise the second (\T@ref).

Thus, \ref* is essentially the same as \@refstar und you could use that instead.

If one would like to go deeper: the source code documentation of hyperref (or hyperref.dtx on CTAN or on your local TeX system) tells that \HyRef@StarSetRef belongs to \ref* and would not be linked, and \@refstar is defined this way:

\def\@refstar#1{%
  \HyRef@StarSetRef{#1}\@firstoffive
}

[Tex/LaTex] Selectively turn off hyperref links for citations

Environment NoHyper should help:

\begin{NoHyper}\cite{foobar}\end{NoHyper}

A star form is problematic, because some citing commands already have one (e.g. \citep, \citet). But macros can be defined, e.g.:

\newcommand*{\nolink}[1]{%
  \begin{NoHyper}#1\end{NoHyper}%
}

\nolink{\cite{foobar}}

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] Selectively turn off hyperref links

[Tex/LaTex] Selectively turn off hyperref links for citations

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