Excel Hyperlink To Website Not Working

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What is a hyperlink?

A hyperlink is defined as “an icon, graphic, or word in a file that, when clicked on with the mouse, automatically opens another file for viewing.”

Play your Flash interaction and enjoy navigating between the hyperlinks! Note: the instructions above are only applicable when your Flash interaction is stored on your local computer. After being uploaded to the Internet, hyperlinks will work regardless of the security restrictions on both your browser and the Flash player plug-in. Excel Misc Hyperlink in csv file not working properly And if you added an equal sign to that formula, would it work: =hyperlink(.) I have a perl script that creates a csv file and e-mails it to an e-mail address. However, the hyperlink is not working. It is listed as. Feb 28, 2014 Some web-links not working in Excel - posted in Business Applications: Hi all, I have a problem with an Excel spreadsheet that I created some time ago. In it are quite a number of links to various. Frustrating that you can paste a hyperlink into a cell as part of a record and the hyperlink won't work. I fixed it manually with these steps: Right-mouse click on cell with non-working hyperlink. Copy the URL in 'Text to display'. Paste the URL into the blank 'Address'. Click the 'OK' button.

If you were around (and paying attention) back when the World Wide Web was in its infancy, you heard a lot about the exciting possibilities of “hypertext,” which is the basis for the Web. When you surf the Web with your Web browser, the “http” that begins the URL displayed in your browser’s address bar or status bar stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol,” and HTML, the language used for Web pages, is “Hypertext Markup Language.”

The whole idea of hypertext is that you don’t have to read it linearly, like a book. It contains “hyperlinks” that, when clicked, instantly transport you somewhere else—another point in the same document or Web page or another document or Web page. This is rather like turning from your current page in a book to the notes or index at the back of the book, or finding a page number in a table of contents and turning to that page, or finding a reference to another book and going and getting that book, except that the process is automated and instant.

Although hyperlinks were originally created for use on the Web, they have become increasingly common in Word documents, especially those intended to be read onscreen. When you insert a table of contents (TOC) in Word 2000 or above, by default the TOC entries are hyperlinked to the corresponding headings in the text. In any version of Word the page numbers in a TOC are hyperlinked to the corresponding pages. Cross-references are also, by default, inserted as hyperlinks.

How to create a hyperlink

In Word a hyperlink consists of (at least) two parts: the display text and the field code. The display text is what the reader recognizes as a hyperlink, but the field code is what makes the computer actually jump to somewhere else. Word provides several ways to create hyperlinks.

Note for Mac Users: This article uses WinWord keyboard shortcuts. On the Mac, Alt+F9 is equivalent to Opt+F9. For Tools | Options, substitute Word | Preferences.

AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type

The AutoFormat As You Type dialog includes a check box for “Internet and network paths with hyperlinks.” If you have this box checked, then whenever you type a text string that Word recognizes as an email address, URL, or file path, it will automatically be converted to a hyperlink. If you have the same box checked in the AutoFormat dialog, such strings will be converted when you run AutoFormat over text that has already been typed.

  • In Word 2000 and earlier, both these dialogs are accessed via Tools | AutoCorrect.

  • In Word 2002 and 2003, the Tools menu entry is called AutoCorrect Options.

  • In Word 2007, access this dialog via Office Button | Word Options | Proofing | AutoCorrect Options...

  • In Word 2010 and above, the path is File | Options | Proofing | AutoCorrect Options...

Figure 1. The AutoFormat As You Type dialog.

Note: You may wonder what type of text Word will automatically recognize as something that should be a hyperlink. Word will “recognize” as an email address any “word” that contains the @ symbol, even if the “email address” is an expletive such as !@#$%. It will recognize text as an URL if it begins with “www.” or “http://” I have not been able to determine what it recognizes as a file path, though the presence of a colon and slashes might be assumed.

Insert Hyperlink button

On the Standard toolbar in Word 2003 and earlier there is an Insert Hyperlink button (see Figure 2). In Word 2007 and above, this button is in the Links group on the Insert tab of the Ribbon. If you select (or even just click in) a recognizable email address, URL, or file path and click this button, Word will convert the text to a hyperlink. The keyboard shortcut for this command is Ctrl+K. In Word 2007 and above, this shortcut opens theInsert Hyperlink dialog (see below).

Figure 2. The Insert Hyperlink button

Insert Hyperlink dialog

The Insert Hyperlink dialog, however, gives you the most control over the hyperlinks you insert. There are at least two (and often three) parts to every hyperlink: (1) the display text, (2) the underlying URL, email address, or file path, and (3) the ScreenTip (see Figure 3).

Website

Figure 3. The Edit Hyperlink dialog (identical to Insert Hyperlink)

When you create a hyperlink using either of the methods described above , the display text and underlying link are the same, and there is no ScreenTip. To access these features you must either use Insert | Hyperlink or Ctrl+K to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog or right-click on an existing hyperlink and choose Edit Hyperlink to open an identical dialog. If you have text selected when you press Ctrl+K or choose Insert | Hyperlink, it will be placed in the “Text to display” box. If you use Edit Hyperlink, the existing hyperlink becomes the default “Text to display,” but of course you can change it.

In Word 2007 and above the Hyperlink command, which opens the Insert Hyperlink dialog, is on the Insert tab; the Edit Hyperlink dialog may be accessed by right-clicking on an existing hyperlink as in previous versions.

The hyperlink created in Figure 3 will be displayed on screen as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Hyperlink in document

The underlying field code for the hyperlink can be seen by pressing Alt+F9 or checking the box for “Field codes” on the View tab of Tools | Options. It is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. HYPERLINK field code

Note that the “display text” does not have to be text. You can use an icon or picture as a hyperlink. Just select the picture in your document and open the Insert Hyperlink dialog. The “Text to display” box will be dimmed (grayed out) and will display <<Selection in document>>.

Word’s Help topic “Create a hyperlink” includes detailed instructions for creating hyperlinks to a variety of targets using this dialog.

When hyperlinks go wrong

An understanding of the above issues should go a long way to helping you figure out what’s happening when hyperlinks don’t look or behave as you think they ought to.

Hyperlinks don’t look like hyperlinks

Although you may be used to seeing hyperlinks as blue and underlined, they can be formatted in many different ways and may even look like ordinary text. For example, TOC entries and cross-references, even when they are hyperlinks, do not have the distinctive hyperlink formatting.

The Hyperlink character style in Word 2003 and earlier is defined as “Default Paragraph Font + Underline, Font color: Blue” (see Figure 6). Like any other style in Word, this style can be modified, so the hyperlinks in your document could be, for example, red and not underlined (as on this Web page)—or any other formatting you desire. In fact, in Word 2007 and above, the formatting of the Hyperlink style varies depending on the theme applied. For example, in the Aspect theme, the Hyperlink color is a shade of green (RGB 107,157,37). Note that there is a separate Followed Hyperlink style (defined as “Default Paragraph Font + Underline, Font color: Violet”) that is automatically applied when a hyperlink has been followed; if you want your hyperlinks always to look the same, you will need to modify this style as well.

Figure 6. The Hyperlink character style

If you expect hyperlinks to be blue and underlined and they’re not, there are several possibilities:

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  1. They’re not active hyperlinks (see next section).

  2. The Hyperlink style has not been applied.

  3. The Hyperlink style has been modified.

  4. The Followed Hyperlink style is in effect instead.

  5. The hyperlinks are cross-references or TOC entries.

If hyperlinks look like Figure 5 above, then you are seeing the field code instead of the field result. You can select or click in the field code and press Shift+F9 to toggle the display of that single field or press Alt+F9 to toggle all the fields in the document or clear the “Field codes” check box on the View tab of Tools | Options.

Hyperlinks aren’t clickable

If a hyperlink, despite looking like a hyperlink, doesn’t do anything when you click on it, there are three possible causes:

  1. It isn’t really a hyperlink. It may just be plain text with the Hyperlink character style applied. Press Alt+F9 to see if there is an underlying HYPERLINK field code.

  2. You are viewing the field code (see Figure 5) instead of the field result.

  3. You are using a version that by default requires you to press Ctrl while clicking in order to follow the link. If you have ScreenTips enabled, you should see a ScreenTip such as the one shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Hyperlink ScreenTip as seen in Word 2002 or later

To turn on the display of ScreenTips:

  • Word 2003 and earlier: Tools | Options | View: Show: ScreenTips.

  • Word 2007: Office Button | Word Options | Display: Show document tooltips on hover.

  • Word 2010 and above: File | Options | Display: Show document tooltips on hover.

This safety feature, introduced in Word 2002, was intended to make it easier to edit the display text of hyperlinks. If you prefer to revert to the behavior of previous versions, clear the check box for “Use CTRL + Click to follow hyperlink” at the following location:

  • Word 2003 and earlier: Tools | Options | Edit

  • Word 2007: Office Button | Word Options | Advanced: Editing options

  • Word 2010 and above: File | Options | Advanced: Editing options

The link goes to the wrong place

This usually means that the display text of the hyperlink doesn’t agree with the underlying link. As noted above, current Word versions make it easier to edit the display text of a hyperlink; you can do this directly in the document because, by default, clicking on or in the hyperlink doesn’t send you haring off across the Internet to the referenced URL.

But changing the display text doesn’t actually change the hyperlink, just the text that is displayed. This may be obvious to you if the display text is different from the underlying URL, but if they are the same, it may not occur to you. In order to change the target of the link, you need to change the HYPERLINK field code as well. You can do this either through the Edit Hyperlink dialog or directly.

To give you a real-world example, some time ago mvps.org moved to a new server, and all the site addresses were changed. So a page at the Word MVPs’ Web site that used to be, say, http://mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm became http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm. In the reference document that I use to keep track of frequently referenced articles at this Web site, I had to change all the links. Using Find and Replace, I could replace “mvps.org/word” with “word.mvps.org” in each link, and this worked great—for the display text. But when I hovered over the links, the ScreenTips showed that the underlying hyperlinks were unchanged. In order to change them, I had to display the field codes (using Alt+F9) and run the Replace operation again.

To my surprise, even this was not effective. The ScreenTips still showed the old URLs. What? Aha! I hadn’t updated the fields. By selecting all the fields (Ctrl+A to select the entire document) and pressing F9 to update the fields, I solved the problem.

The bottom line is that if you want to change the target of a hyperlink, you must do it in three steps:

  1. Change the display text (if it is the same as the target).

  2. Change the underlying HYPERLINK field code.

  3. Update the field.

Paul DeBrino has reminded me of another issue that causes Microsoft Word to change and perhaps break your hyperlinks, by altering the link from an absolute to relative path or vice versa, when saving your Word document.

After creating a hyperlink in Word, hovering over that hyperlink displays your intended path. However, once you click Save, Word may change the link to a path that is relative to the Word document’s location, a virtual path that begins with …/

To prevent Word from changing your hyperlinks, take the following steps:

  1. Click Tools | Options (in Word 2007, Office Button | Word Options; in Word 2010/2013, File | Options).

  2. On the General tab, click the Web Options button (in Word 2007 and above, this button is at the very bottom of the Advanced section of Word Options).

  3. In the Web Options window, click the Files tab.

  4. Clear the check box for “Update links on save.”

  5. Click OK to save your preferences.

Excel Hyperlink To Website Not Working

This article copyright © 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013 by Suzanne S. Barnhill, with thanks to Daiya Mitchell for her helpful comments.

HYPERLINK function in Excel returns a shortcut or hyperlink to a specific object, which can be a web page, a file saved in the PC's permanent memory, a group of cells on a sheet in an Excel workbook.

HYPERLINK function and features of its arguments

HYPERLINK feature simplifies access to objects that are both parts of Excel (cells, sheets of a book), as well as parts of other software products (notepad, Word file) or pages on the Internet. This function has the following syntax entry:

=HYPERLINK(Link_location,[Friendly_name])

Description of 2 parameters of the function arguments:

  • Link_location is a text value corresponding to the name of the object being opened and the full path to access it. This parameter is required. The address may indicate a specific part of the document, for example, a cell or a range of cells, a bookmark in a text editor Word. The path may contain data about the path to the file in the PC file system (for example, “C:UserssoulpDocuments”) or the URL address to a page on the Internet.
  • [Friendly_name] is the text value that will be displayed as the text of the hyperlink. Displayed in blue with underlined text.

Notes:

  1. The address and [Friendly_name] parameters take values as a text string in quotes (“address”, “name”) or links to cells containing the address and object name, respectively.
  2. In Excel Online (an online version of the Excel program for working through the web interface), the HYPERLINK function can only be used to create hyperlinks to web objects, since browser applications do not have access to device file systems.
  3. If in the cell to which the [name] parameter refers, the value of the error code #VALUE !, was set, the text of the created hyperlink will also display '#VALUE!'.
  4. To select a cell containing a hyperlink, without navigating through it, you must hover the mouse over the desired cell, press and do not release the left mouse button until the cursor changes its shape to “+”. Then you can release the mouse button, the desired cell will be highlighted.
  5. In the online version of Excel, to highlight the cell containing the hyperlink, you must move the cursor so that it looks like a normal arrow. To navigate through the hyperlink, you must hover the cursor directly on its text. In this case, the cursor will look like a hand.
  6. To create a hyperlink to an Internet resource, you can use the following entry: =HYPERLINK(“http://www.bing.com/”,”BING Search Engine”).
  7. A hyperlink to a document stored in the PC file system can be created as follows: =HYPERLINK(“C:UserssoulpDownloadsdocument_2”,”Link to document_2”). When you click on this link, a dialog box appears with a warning about the possible presence of malware in the file. To open the file, you must click the 'OK' button in this dialog box. If there is no file in the specified path, a corresponding notification will appear.
  8. To create a link to another sheet in the Excel workbook, you can use a similar entry: =HYPERLINK(“[Book1.xlsx]Sheet2!A1”,”Sheet2”). When you click on this link, Sheet2 will be opened, and the focus will be set on cell A1.
  9. The hyperlink can be inserted using the visual user interface (the corresponding context menu item, the button on the taskbar).

Examples of using HYPERLINK function in Excel

How to create a link to a file in Excel? Example 1. An enterprise accountant performs various calculations and stores data tables in Excel in one book (Accounting.xlsx) containing multiple sheets. For convenience, it was decided to create a separate sheet with a table of contents in the form of hyperlinks to each of the available sheets.

On the new sheet, create the following table:

To create a hyperlink we use the formula:

Description of the function arguments:

  • '[Example_1.xlsx] Profit! A1' is the full address of cell A1 of the 'Profit' sheet of the book 'Example_1.xlsx';
  • 'Profit' - the text that will display the link.

Similarly, create hyperlinks for other pages. As a result, we get:

Dynamic HYPERLINK to Excel

Example 2. The Excel spreadsheet contains data on the rates of certain currencies, which are used to perform various financial calculations. Since exchange rates are dynamically changing values, the accountant decided to place a hyperlink to a web page that provides relevant data.

Source table:

To create a link to the resource https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/, in cell D7, enter the following formula:

Description of parameters:

  • https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/ - URL address of the required site;
  • 'Exchange Rates' - the text displayed in the link.

As a result, we get:

Not

Note: the specified web page will be opened in the browser used in the system by default.

Sending emails via Excel HYPERLINK

Example 3. An enterprise employee has difficulty using the IF function in Excel. To solve a problem in one of the documents, it has a ready-made form for sending an email. Sending a letter occurs by clicking on the hyperlink. Consider how this form of sending letters is arranged.

The form is as follows:

The values of cells B3 and B4 can be changed at the discretion of the user (depending on the reason for contacting the support service). Cell B5 contains the function:

CONCATENATE – this function performs concatenation (concatenation of text strings taken as parameters).

Description of parameters:

  • 'mailto:' - command to send letters;
  • B2 - cell containing email support services;
  • '?subject=' - command to write the subject of the letter;
  • ENCODEURL(B3) - a function that converts the text of a letter subject to a URL encoding;
  • '& body =' - the command to write the text of the letter;
  • ENCODEURL(B4) - the text of the letter in the encoding URL.

Cell B6 has the following function:

Description of parameters:

  • B5 - URL command to send a letter containing the subject and text of the letter;
  • 'Send Letter' is the name of the hyperlink.

Clicking on the link will open the default mail client, for example, Outlook (but in this case, the standard Windows client).