Disable acronym package hyperlink for section titles

Question

I am using the acronym package in my thesis and creating a table of acronyms in the process. Throughout the thesis the acronyms are hyperlinked back to the table.

However, I don't want acronyms in sections titles to be linked as well because this creates a weird link within the ToC and also within page headers.

Can I redefine the hyperref macro for the \chapter, \section, \subsection environments so that it won't link them? And how? (This answer has it document wide for the \ac* commands)

MWE

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{acronym}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\title      {Example Thesis}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\chapter*{Definitions and Abbreviations}
\begin{acronym}
  \acro{RF}{Radio Frequency}
  \acro{PA}{power amplifier}
  \acro{WPAN}{wireless personal area networks}
\end{acronym}
\mainmatter
\chapter{\acs{RF} Communication}
\acf{RF} Communication can be used to transfer information between devices in \ac{WPAN}.
\end{document}

muzimuzhi Z · Accepted Answer · 2024-01-17T08:22:53.863

Here a new command \acrNoHyperlink{<acr command>}{<acr argument>} is provided. It creates a new group, locally disables the acronym hyperlink, then runs <acr command>{<acr argument>}.

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{acronym}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\title{Example Thesis}
\makeatletter
\DeclareRobustCommand\acrNoHyperlink[2]{%
  % to avoid warning "Token not allowed in a PDF string"
  \texorpdfstring{%
    \begingroup
    \disableAcronymHyperlink
    #1{#2}%
    \endgroup
  }{#1{#2}}%
}
\newcommand{\disableAcronymHyperlink}{%
  % copied from acronym.sty, lines 125--128
  \def\AC@hyperlink##1##2{##2}%
  \def\AC@hyperref[##1]##2{##2}%
  \def\AC@hypertarget##1##2{##2}%
  \def\AC@phantomsection{}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\chapter*{Definitions and Abbreviations}
\begin{acronym}
  \acro{RF}{Radio Frequency}
  \acro{PA}{power amplifier}
  \acro{WPAN}{wireless personal area networks}
\end{acronym}
\mainmatter
\chapter{\acrNoHyperlink{\acs}{RF} Communication}
\acf{RF} Communication can be used to transfer information between devices in \ac{WPAN}.
\newpage a
\end{document}

See images of output showing chapter title in toc, text and header.

Is there anyway to automatically use this command in the chapter subsection environment? — EdL, Jul 13 '20 at 13:58
@EdL It is doable, but need to hack into internals of sectioning commands. That will cause potential compatibility problems. — muzimuzhi Z, Jul 13 '20 at 15:15

Disable acronym package hyperlink for section titles

MWE

1 Answers1