Java: Find Text and Add Hyperlinks for Them in PDF

In PDF, a hyperlink allows viewers to jump to another document or a website. In this article, I’ll show you how to automatically add hyperlinks to all matching text on a specific PDF page by using Java codes.

DEPENDENCY

I used a free third-party library called Free Spire.PDF for Java to finish the operation above. First of all, I’ll add the Spire.PDF.jar file as a dependency in Java program. The JAR file can be downloaded from this link, or directly add the following Maven configuration to pom.xml file.

<repositories>
<repository>
<id>com.e-iceblue</id>
<name>e-iceblue</name>
<url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
<artifactId>spire.pdf.free</artifactId>
<version>3.9.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

USING THE CODE
Free Spire.PDF for Java will use the method provided by PdfTextFindCollection class to find all matched text 
in a specific PDF page and set hyperlinks for them. Here are the detailed steps to follow.
l  Create a PdfDocument instance and load a sample PDF document using PdfDocument.loadFromFile() method.
l  Get a specific page of the document using PdfDocument.getPages().get() method.
l  Find all matched text in the page using PdfPageBase.findText(String searchPatternText, boolean isSearchWholeWord) 
method, and return a PdfTextFindCollection object.
l  Create a PdfUriAnnotation instance based on the bounds of a specific find result.
l  Set a URL address for the annotation using PdfUriAnnotation.set(String value) method and set its border and color as well.
l  Add the URL annotation to the PDF annotation collection as a new annotation using PdfPageBase.getAnnotationWidget().add()
method.
l  Save the document using PdfDocument.saveToFile() method.
import com.spire.pdf.*;
import com.spire.pdf.annotations.*;
import com.spire.pdf.general.find.*;
import com.spire.pdf.graphics.PdfRGBColor;
import java.awt.*;

public class SearchTextAndAddHyperlink {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Create a PdfDocument instance
        PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument();

        //Load a sample PDF document
        pdf.loadFromFile("C:\\Users\\Test1\\Desktop\\sample.pdf");

        //Get the first page
        PdfPageBase page = pdf.getPages().get(0);

        //Find all matched strings and return a PdfTextFindCollection object
        PdfTextFindCollection collection = page.findText("Java", false);

        //loop through the find collection
        for(PdfTextFind find : collection.getFinds())
        {
            // Create a PdfUriAnnotation instance to add hyperlinks for the searched text
            PdfUriAnnotation uri = new PdfUriAnnotation(find.getBounds());
            uri.setUri("https://www.oracle.com/index.html");
            uri.setBorder(new PdfAnnotationBorder(1f));
            uri.setColor(new PdfRGBColor(Color.blue));
            page.getAnnotationsWidget().add(uri);
        }

        //Save the document
        pdf.saveToFile("output/searchTextAndAddHyperlink.pdf");
    }
}