How to remove green hyperlink box in preview?

Is it possible to disable the obnoxious green hyperlink bounding boxes in Preview (PDF)?

I do not have access to the latex. The link to the paper is here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.01261.pdf.

When viewed on google there are no boxes, but when I download it for editing the pdf becomes a green swamp. I could not find any setting in Preview to disable this (on High Sierra).

Solution 1:

Found a simple solution. If you print the pdf and download the print preview you will get a flattened version of your pdf.

Solution 2:

That's not a Preview thing, the boxes are written into the PDF. I see the exact same display (green or red outlines for all links) using the built-in HTML PDF viewer in Firefox, or when opening it in Adobe Acrobat Pro. The author chose this link color, apparently.

Updating answer to include a screenshot taken in Adobe Acrobat. The link in the paper is explicitly set to render with a green, visible rectangle around the text. rendering engine. The PDF renders exactly the same (with green, visible rectangle around the text) on a Windows machine running Adobe Acrobat. If it renders with green visible rectangle around the hyperlink in multiple independent PDF engines across 2 platforms, AND a PDF editing tool shows that the links are explicitly set to render with this green rectangle, it is not logical to assume that this is a macOS or Preview bug.