Closing Documents after a Hyperlink

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 25, 2017)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

When Tom hyperlinks from one Word document to another, he would like the previous document to close automatically. He notes that if he has several documents hyperlinking to several others, he can end up with quite a few Word documents open at the same time.

Believe it or not, this behavior is built into Word. Well, it has been built into Word since the advent of Word 2000. In Word 97, hyperlinks to new documents worked very similar to the way that Tom describes—the destination document would open in the same window that the source document previously occupied.

This change was a result of a user interface change implemented by Microsoft in Word 2000. You can read more about this behavior change here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224717

Thus, the behavior of current versions of Word relative to hyperlinks and new windows cannot be changed. You could, however, bypass hyperlinks all together and create some sort of macro or macro button to open the new document and close the old one. The ways in which you would implement such a workaround will depend on the names and locations of the documents you want to access.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (512) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Making VLOOKUP Trigger a Macro

VLOOKUP is an oft-used worksheet function to lookup values in a data table. If the function cannot return a value, it ...

Discover More

Using Call to Run VBA Macros

An elegant way to run macros from within macros is to use the Call statement. In order to use it, you need to provide a ...

Discover More

Creating Compound Characters

Word provides access to a wide variety of characters either from the keyboard or from the Symbol dialog box. Up and above ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Creating a Hyperlink that Opens the Linked Object

Hyperlinks can be very helpful for loading and displaying external resources. But they are less useful for opening and ...

Discover More

Stopping Word from Accessing the Internet

When you start Word, does it try to access the Internet? It may, depending on how your version of Word is configured. If ...

Discover More

Maintaining Proper Hyperlinks in Word 2000 and Later

Keeping hyperlinks properly working in a group of documents can be a challenge. Here's a way that you can make sure that ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 2 + 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.