5.14.3 @url PDF Output Format

If the ultimate purpose of a PDF is only to be viewed online, perhaps similar to HTML in some inchoate way, you may not want the URLs to be included in the visible text (just as URLs are not visible to readers of web pages). Texinfo provides a PDF-specific option for this, which must be used inside @tex:

@tex
\global\urefurlonlylinktrue
@end tex

The result is that @url{http://www.gnu.org, GNU} has the visible output of just ‘GNU’, with a link target of http://www.gnu.org. Ordinarily, the visible output would include both the label and the url: ‘GNU (http://www.gnu.org)’.

This option only has effect when the PDF output is produced with the pdfTeX program, not with other ways of getting from Texinfo to PDF (e.g., TeX to DVI to PDF). Consequently, it is ok to specify this option unconditionally within @tex, as shown above. It is ignored when DVI is being produced.