Hide Edit Links in Managed Navigation, SharePoint 2013

Introduction

An exciting new feature in SharePoint 2013 is managed navigation. This feature allows us to design a site navigation that is driven by terms or topics rather than (site) structure.

You will find edit link on the site navigation to make it easier for editing the links (Add, Modify, and Delete).

It is very useful for Admins for manipulating the navigation, but what about others? What if you want to hide it from the rest of the crowd who has higher permission level than visitors? Anyone with contribute permission can change the menu system as per their wish and Admins wouldn’t want that to happen.

Hiding it off is pretty easy and is a 3 step process:

1. Make a copy of the default master page (in my case, it was Seattle.Master)
2. Put CSS to hide the edit link in the copied master page (affected css ms-navedit-editLinksText)
3. Change the default master page to copied master page.

Below are the detailed steps to do that:

1. First, you need to know the default master page for your SharePoint site. To do that, go to Site Setting and click on Master Page under Look and Feel. You will see the screen like below:

   

   So, now you know what your default master page is (Seattle in above image). Open SharePoint Designer for SharePoint 2013 and go to path “All Files>>_catalogs>>masterpage”.

   

   There you will see all the master pages for your site. Make a copy of the Master Page and rename it to your desired one. Let me call it MyMasterPage.Master for reference. This is done because you will not be able to edit the Seattle.Master page directly.

2. Now we have MyMasterPage.Master ready for customization. Edit the MyMasterPage.Master in SharePoint Designer. It will ask for checking out the file, click yes to proceed.
   Just above the close head tag, add the below lines:

   <style>
    .ms-navedit-editLinksText{
     display: none;
    }
    </style>
   </head>

   Save the MyMasterPage.Master and check in to “Publish a major version” (if you have a publishing site.)

3. Finally, revisit step one and change the default master page to MyMasterPage.Master in both the dropdown lists.

Now refresh your website and the edit link is gone forever.