URLs in InDesign: Losing the boxes

Praise the lord and sound the trumpets…I finally got around to googling one of my most consistent vexations in InDesign: the dreaded “WTF black box around the placed URL from the client’s Word document.” An Example:

Without having done any research, I assumed this was just an artifact of placed text and tried to ignore it to the extent I could ignore something so glaringly wrong. Turns out, this is an indication of hypertext as far as InDesign is concerned. To lose these boxes you need to use the “Hyperlinks” panel (Window>Interactive>Hyperlinks). Highlight the text with the box around it and drag the corresponding hyperlink item in the Hyperlinks Window to the trash. It’s easy as that.

This post answered this question for me. So J.J., whoever and wherever you are, a tip of that hat and a beer in your honor. Thanks.

-oAk-

2 Comments

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November 3, 2009

Bruce Colthart (@bccreative)

It stinks that each hyperlink needs to be highlighted first. Can’t simply go through the list and turn box off or you’ll get a message asking for URL :[

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November 3, 2009

Bruce Colthart (@bccreative)

Scratch that last comment. First of all, in Indy3, dragging the hyperlink in the palette to the trash prompted me to discard the entire hyperlink (which I didn’t want for my online publication) – I only wanted to eliminate the box. After highlighting the individual hyperlinked text (which identifies the specific numbered hyperlink in the list ) then clicking on the fly-out menu’s Hyperlink Options, and then changing the Box qualities from visible to invisible – voila!

Even better, I found that highlighting an entire story highlights ALL the hyperlinks in the menu, and they can all be changed together!

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