If you use a digital planner in GoodNotes, you've definitely used hyperlinks — every time you tap a tab and jump to your weekly spread, that's a hyperlink doing its job. But have you ever wondered how those links actually work? Or why sometimes they work perfectly and sometimes they just… don't?

Understanding this is actually really useful, especially if you ever want to make your own planners. Let me break it down in plain English.

What Is a Hyperlink in a Digital Planner?

In a digital planner context, a hyperlink is an invisible interactive area embedded in the PDF file that, when tapped, sends you to a specific page in the document.

That's it. It's not magic — it's just a feature of the PDF format itself. PDFs have supported internal links for decades. The digital planner community just figured out how to use them creatively to make navigation feel intuitive and planner-like. (If you're fuzzy on what counts as a "digital planner" versus a plain PDF, I cover that in this post.)

How Are They Created?

Hyperlinks in digital planners are created in the design software — Adobe InDesign or Affinity are the two main tools people use — before the file is exported as a PDF. Wondering which app to learn? Here's my honest InDesign vs Affinity comparison.

Here's the basic process:

1. You design your planner pages in the software
2. You create hyperlink buttons — these can be any shape or element on the page
3. You set each button to link to a specific page number in the document
4. When you export to PDF, those links are embedded in the file
5. When someone opens the PDF in GoodNotes and taps the button, GoodNotes reads the link and jumps to that page

The links live inside the PDF itself, which is why your planner works the same whether someone opens it in GoodNotes, Notability, PDF Expert, or any other app that supports PDF links.

Why Do Hyperlinks Sometimes Break?

This is one of the most common frustrations for both digital planner users and designers. A few things can cause links to stop working:

The PDF wasn't exported correctly. If the designer exported their file with the wrong settings, the hyperlinks may not have been embedded properly. This is a really common mistake for people who are new to InDesign or Affinity.

The wrong export format was used. There's a difference between a "print" PDF and an "interactive" PDF. You need to export as interactive for the links to work.

The app doesn't support PDF links. Most popular annotation apps do, but some cheaper or less-known apps don't handle internal PDF links well.

The planner was designed in a tool that doesn't support proper hyperlinking. This is a big one — planners designed entirely in Canva, for example, often have link issues because Canva's PDF export has limited hyperlink support. More on tool choice in the best apps for creating digital planners in 2026.

The "Back Button" Link

One thing that makes digital planners extra functional is back button navigation — little arrow buttons that take you back to where you came from (usually the monthly or dashboard view). These are also hyperlinks, just pointing to a different destination page.

A well-designed planner will have logical navigation built throughout: from the annual view to the monthly view to the weekly view and back again. Building that navigation system is one of the more satisfying parts of planner design once you understand how it works.

Want to Learn How to Build Them Yourself?

If this has you curious about designing your own planners — setting up your own hyperlinks, building your own navigation system, creating a planner that works exactly the way you want it to — that's the whole heart of what I teach in Digital Planner Design Lab.

I'll walk you through the exact process in both Adobe InDesign and Affinity, including how to set up hyperlinks correctly so they actually work when your customers open the file in GoodNotes.

Check out Digital Planner Design Lab →