Symbol for external links

Question

I'm using the hyperref package in my document to provide hyperlinks to external documents. However, I don't want to have the links coloured or underlined, because I find this usually ugly and distracting. What I would rather like is a little symbol beside the link text to provide a small hint for the reader that there is something clickable. What I have in mind is something like the little symbol constisting of a small square and an arrow you can find e.g. in Wikipedia for external links. Is there any package or font that provides such a symbol or do I have to brew one myself?

Answer 1

I'm using TikZ to draw the symbol:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\newcommand{\ExternalLink}{%
    \tikz[x=1.2ex, y=1.2ex, baseline=-0.05ex]{% 
        \begin{scope}[x=1ex, y=1ex]
            \clip (-0.1,-0.1) 
                --++ (-0, 1.2) 
                --++ (0.6, 0) 
                --++ (0, -0.6) 
                --++ (0.6, 0) 
                --++ (0, -1);
            \path[draw, 
                line width = 0.5, 
                rounded corners=0.5] 
                (0,0) rectangle (1,1);
        \end{scope}
        \path[draw, line width = 0.5] (0.5, 0.5) 
            -- (1, 1);
        \path[draw, line width = 0.5] (0.6, 1) 
            -- (1, 1) -- (1, 0.6);
        }
    }

\begin{document}
See Wikipedia \ExternalLink for more information.
\end{document}

Answer 2

^{In addition to Svend Mortensen’s answer, too long for a comment.}

For Xe(La)TeX or Lua(La)TeX see also update below.

If you already set a document with a lot of \hrefin it, you also can redefine the hrefcommand by copying the original macro to a new one with \let (works here, but not in every case!), see my example.

Note, that I used a dedicated hyperref option for hiding the links. I also show some symbols from two dingbat fonts. Fonts of this type should be in general the most useful for your need.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{bbding,pifont} % two dingbat fonts

\usepackage{graphicx} % "graphics" would be enough for the minimal example

\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}

% Redefinition:
\let\orighref\href
\renewcommand{\href}[2]{\orighref{#1}{#2}\,\ArrowBoldUpRight} %bbding
% the same with symbol included in link:
% \renewcommand{\href}[2]{\orighref{#1}{#2\,\ArrowBoldUpRight}}

% Examples:
\newcommand{\hrefa}[1]{\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}\,\scalebox{0.75}{\ArrowBoldUpRight}} %bbding
\newcommand{\hrefb}[1]{\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}\,\ding{230}} %pifont
\newcommand{\hrefc}[1]{\raisebox{-0.4ex}{\HandRight}\,\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}} %bbding
\newcommand{\hrefd}[1]{\scalebox{1.3}{\raisebox{-0.3ex}{\ding{43}}}\,\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}} %pifont
\newcommand{\hrefe}[1]{\scalebox{0.8}{\raisebox{-0.5ex}{\HandRightUp}}\,\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}} %bbding
\newcommand{\hreff}[1]{\ding{226}\,\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}} %pifont
\newcommand{\hrefg}[1]{\ding{238}\,\orighref{http://example.com/}{#1}} %pifont
% the last with symbol included in link:
% \newcommand{\hrefg}[1]{\orighref{http://example.com/}{\ding{238}\,#1}} %pifont

\begin{document}

\hrefa{link A}, \hrefb{link B},

\hrefc{link C}, \hrefd{link D}, \hrefe{link E}, \hreff{link F}, \hrefg{link G}

\end{document}

---

Update:

Bad timing – shortly after writing of this answer a new package fontawesome was released. For Xe(La)TeX or Lua(La)TeX users this package “grants access to 249 web-related icons provided by the included Font Awesome free font” (cite from documentation abstract). One of them is the symbol for external links accessible with \faicon{external-link} or \faExternalLink:

% Compile with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontawesome}
\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}

% Redefinition, symbol included in link:
\let\orighref\href
\renewcommand{\href}[2]{\orighref{#1}{#2\,\faExternalLink}}

\begin{document}
\href{http://example.com}{example web site}
\end{document}

Answer 3

One can simply use the ExternalLink icon in the fontawesome package

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\RequirePackage{fontawesome}
\begin{document}
\href{https://stackexchange.com/}{Link to Home page \faExternalLink}
\end{document}

output:

Answer 4

Another idea:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{txfonts}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\def\xLink{$\!\vcenter{\hbox{\rotatebox{45}{$\DiamondRight$}}}\!\!$}
\begin{document}
See Wikipedia\xLink\ for details about this logo.
\end{document}

Answer 5

Maybe the following is useful.

Code

Either

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{bbding}
\usepackage[pdfborder={0 0 0}]{hyperref}

\newcommand*\link[2]{%
  \href{#1}{#2}\,\raisebox{-1pt}{\footnotesize\FourStarOpen}%
}

\begin{document}

Click \link{http://www.latex-project.org/}{here} to go to the webpage.

\end{document}

or

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{bbding}
\usepackage[pdfborder={0 0 0}]{hyperref}

\newcommand*\link[2]{%
  \href{#1}{#2}\,{\scriptsize\FourStarOpen}%
}

\begin{document}

Click \link{http://www.latex-project.org/}{here} to go to the webpage.

\end{document}

will do the job.

Output (for the first MWE)

Answer 6

If somehow \faExternalLink is not working like in my case, use below syntax

\faIcon{external-link-alt}

Answer 7

All,

as you have been an inspiration in digging through tikz, I wanted to share my broken-chain design which in my opinion looks beautiful.

The inspiration behind the design can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bjpbn2b7SdziedfCWoDUPJ-w_AL5lVyq/view?usp=sharing

You can call the icon by the command \link. You can vary the thickness of the chain by setting \width accordingly:

\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{xfp}
\newcommand\fei{\fpeval{(sqrt(5)-1)/2}}
%define width - recommended values [0.4-0.8] or \fei
\newcommand{\width}{\fei}
\newcommand\feiplusone{\fpeval{\fei+1}}
\newcommand\twofei{\fpeval{2\fei}}
\newcommand\twofeiplusone{{\fpeval{2\fei+1}}}
\newcommand{\widthplusone}{\fpeval{\width+1}}
\newcommand{\offset}{\fpeval{4\fei+1+\width/2}}
\newcommand{\offsetangle}{\fpeval{\offset/2sqrt(2)}}
\newcommand{\distACx}{\fpeval{\fei+1+\width/2}}
\newcommand{\radius}{\fpeval{sqrt(\distACx^2 + 1)}}
\newcommand{\centerpoint}{\fpeval{2*\fei+1+\width/2}}
\newcommand{\pointBx}{\fpeval{\centerpoint - sqrt(\radius^2 - (1+\width)^2) }}
\newcommand{\distBCx}{\fpeval{\centerpoint - \pointBx}}
\newcommand{\angleOCB}{\fpeval{atand((1+\width) / \distBCx )}}
\newcommand{\angleOCA}{\fpeval{atand(1/\distACx)}}
\newcommand{\angleACB}{\fpeval{\angleOCB - \angleOCA}}
\newcommand{\angleI}{\fpeval{\angleOCA - 180}}
\newcommand{\angleII}{\fpeval{\angleACB + \angleI}}
\newcommand{\ring}{
(\fei,-1) -- (\fei,-1) arc [radius= \radius , start angle=\angleI, end angle=\angleII] -- (0,-\widthplusone) -- (0,-\widthplusone) arc [radius=\widthplusone, start angle=270, end angle= 90] -- (\twofei,\widthplusone) -- (\twofei,\widthplusone) arc [radius=\widthplusone, start angle=90, end angle= 0] -- (\twofeiplusone,0) -- (\twofeiplusone,0) arc [radius=1, start angle=0, end angle= 90] -- (0,1) -- (0,1) arc [radius=1, start angle=90, end angle=270] -- (\fei,-1);
}
\newcommand{\link}{
\tikz[x=0.26ex, y=0.26ex, line width = 0.1]{ 
\path[draw, fill=black, cm={cos(-45) ,-sin(-45) ,sin(-45) ,cos(-45) ,(0,0)}] \ring
\path[draw, fill=black, cm={cos(135) ,-sin(135) ,sin(135) ,cos(135) ,(\offsetangle , \offsetangle)}] \ring
}
}