how do i change hyperlinks inside pdf using python?

Question

How do I change the hyperlinks in pdf using python? I am currently using a pyPDF2 to open up and loop through the pages. How do I actually scan for hyperlinks and then proceed to change the hyperlinks?

Answer 1

So I couldn't get what you want using the pyPDF2 library.

I did however get something working with another library: pdfrw. This installed fine for me using pip in Python 3.6:

pip install pdfrw

Note: for the following I have been using this example pdf I found online which contains multiple links. Your mileage may vary with this.

import pdfrw

pdf = pdfrw.PdfReader("pdf.pdf")  # Load the pdf
new_pdf = pdfrw.PdfWriter()  # Create an empty pdf

for page in pdf.pages:  # Go through the pages

    # Links are in Annots, but some pages don't have links so Annots returns None
    for annot in page.Annots or []:

        old_url = annot.A.URI

        # >Here you put logic for replacing the URLs<
        
        # Use the PdfString object to do the encoding for us
        # Note the brackets around the URL here
        new_url = pdfrw.objects.pdfstring.PdfString("(http://www.google.com)")

        # Override the URL with ours
        annot.A.URI = new_url

    new_pdf.addpage(page)    

new_pdf.write("new.pdf")