Making Live URLs Into Normal Text

Word, being the well-connected program that it is, has a feature that automatically converts a URL into a hyperlink. While you can turn off the feature so that Word doesn't do the conversion, you may have documents that already contain the link fields. That, or you may get a file from someone else who did not disable the feature. In these instances, you may be looking for ways in which to remove the existing hyperlinks. There are several ways you can approach this problem.

The first (and easiest) way to remove the hyperlinks is to simply position the insertion point somewhere within the link and then press Ctrl+Shift+F9. This converts the field code back to regular text, without the link. In fact, if you don't use fields in your document for anything except hyperlinks, you can remove every hyperlink by simply selecting the entire document (press Ctrl+A) and then pressing Ctrl+Shift+F9. You should realize, however, that if there are other fields in your document, this action results in them being converted to plain text as well.

You can also use a menu-based technique to remove your hyperlinks. If you are using Word 97, you need to follow these steps:

1. Right-click the hyperlink you want to remove. Word displays a Context menu.
2. Choose the Hyperlink option, then choose Edit Hyperlink from the submenu.
3. Word may now prompt you to save your document before editing your hyperlink. You can save it if desired, but it is not absolutely necessary.
4. The Edit Hyperlink dialog box is now displayed. Click on the Remove Link button in the lower-left corner of the dialog box.

If you are using Word 2000, you can follow the above steps, but following these steps will be a bit easier:

1. Right-click the hyperlink you want to remove. Word displays a Context menu.
2. Choose the Hyperlink option, then choose Remove Hyperlink from the submenu.

In Word 2002 or Word 2003 it is even easier: Right-click the hyperlink you want to remove and choose Remove Hyperlink from the Context menu.

If you have quite a few documents where you need to remove hyperlinks, then even these simple suggestions can become tedious after a while. In this instance you may want to create a macro to do the work for you. The following macro, RemoveHyperLinks, removes all the hyperlinks in a document and makes sure that the AutoFormat feature for creating hyperlinks is turned off:

Sub RemoveHyperlinks()
    While ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Count > 0
        ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks(1).Delete
    Wend
    Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceHyperlinks = False
End Sub

This macro does not harm any other fields within your document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1068) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Making Live URLs Into Normal Text.