Fixing Blank Hyperlinks in IronPDF

Updated:June 22, 2025

This is a known limitation of many web browsers when opening a PDF in a browser.

Not specific to IronPDF.

Chrome has this issue, so does Safari and we await an update from the browser developers to fix it.
_blank is not respected in PDF documents.

If you hold down control and click the link in the PDF (command on macOS) it will open in a new tab.

You can achieve the same by printing any web page to PDF in your browser print menu and notice the same behavior.

When viewing a PDF in Adobe Acrobat, or Apple Preview, you will notice that links open in a new browser tab.

Bug report for Chrome web browser:
https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/9273095/open-display-pdf-in-a-new-tab-when-click-on-a-link?hl=en

As this relates to your client software, there is nothing we can currently do to change this behavior.

Rendering this simple HTML file to PDF via print to PDF in Chrome or Safari gives the same behavior as IronPDF.
The hyperlink opens in the same tab if viewed in a browser rather than a desktop PDF client.
test.html
test.html.pdf

Chaknith Bin

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Software Engineer

Chaknith works on IronXL and IronBarcode. He has deep expertise in C# and .NET, helping improve the software and support customers. His insights from user interactions contribute to better products, documentation, and overall experience.