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Using Hyperlinks in Word 2007 Documents

July 16th, 2008 | by Loren |

Hyperlinks make it easy for you to reference and link to other files from your original Word document. By adding a clickable link in a digital copy of the document, a reader can easily jump from the link to the referenced file. Any hyperlinks added into your document will continue to work if you save the file as a pdf.

How to Create a Hyperlink

  1. Position the cursor where they hyperlinked text should appear or select the text that will be hyperlnked.
  2. Push Ctrl + K or in the Insert tab, Links group, click Hyperlink.
  3. In the Hyperlink box, under Link to: (See 1 in image below), choose Existing File or Web Page.
  4. In the Text to display: section (See 2), the text you had highlighted in the document should show, or you can type in text. It doesn’t need to be the same as the address the link will go to.
  5. Type or paste the address to link to in the Address: box (See 4 below) or use the Look in: (3) list by clicking the down-arrow, then find the file to link to.
  6. OK to finish.

To Link to a Specific Location in a Document

  1. Mark the location that the link will point to. You can use either a bookmark or a built-in heading style.
    • To use a bookmark, select the text for the bookmark, then on the Insert tab, Links group, click Bookmark. Type in a name for the bookmark, then Add to finish. (Bookmarks names should start with a letter, but can contain numbers. You can’t use spaces in bookmark names, use an underscore instead.)
    • To use a heading, apply one of the built-in headings to the text the link will point to.
  2. To create the hyperlink, push Ctrl + K or in the Insert tab, Links group, click Hyperlink.
  3. Under Link to: choose Place in This Document, then select the bookmark to link to.
  4. OK to finish.

Change the Ctrl + click for Hyperlinks

  1. Click the Office button, then Word Options.
  2. Click the Advanced category in the left pane.
  3. In the Editing Options section, un-check the Use Ctrl + Click to follow hyperlink check box.
  4. OK to finish.

Extra

  • You can find all the options for working with hyperlinks by right-clicking on them.
  • To copy an address for a web site or a file, go to the file in a folder view or go the the website. Then click in the address bar to select the address, push Ctrl + C to copy it. Move to where you want to use the address, press Ctrl + V to paste it.
  • To copy a file name, click twice on the file (slower than a double-click to open the file). The file name will highlight, as if you were going to rename it, press Ctrl + C to copy the name. Move to where you want to use the file name, push Ctrl + V to paste it. If you don’t have file extensions showing, you will have to type in the extenion to the file name.

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  1. 44 Responses to “Using Hyperlinks in Word 2007 Documents”

  2. By rltomkinson on May 15, 2010 | Reply

    Setting “Followed Hyperlink” color the same as “Hyperlink”
    1. Go to Page Layout tab.
    2. Pick Colors in the Themes group.
    3. At the bottom of the menu, click on “Create New Theme Colors”.
    4. At the bottom, set the colors for “Hyperlink” and “Followed Hyperlink” as desired.
    5. Click “Save”.
    6. Click the Themes” button in the Themes group.
    7. Click “Save Current Theme”.
    8. If need be, click the Themes” button in the Themes group and set your new theme as the current theme.
    9. Note: This will only work in files saved in MS Word 2007 and later.

  3. By Chris Cote on Dec 15, 2009 | Reply

    I am having the same problem of having WORD 07 change the color of a hyperlink to purple after it is clicked on. How can this be changed? It doesn’t look like this question was answered. THANKS

  4. By irene on Dec 12, 2009 | Reply

    I want to see on the document the address behind the hyperlinks (not just see it fleetingly by hovering, but that it shows on the document). Once upon a time it was easy to do by copy-pasting it into Wordpad. Not anymore! Now your only option is right click, edit hyperlink, copy and then back to the document, and paste. So laborious to do it when you have whole lists of links or e-mail addresses. And also, today I noticed that this doesn’t work anymore (I don’t get any hyperlink options in the right-click menu).
    Now I saw the instructions to press CTRL+SHIFT and then F9. I tried it but it doesn’t work.
    BTW, I have Word 2007 on Windows 7 and I’m an experienced user.

  5. By Isaac on Dec 3, 2009 | Reply

    How can I use Word 2007’s Save As PDF feature, (which is VERY cool for all of us who longed to create nice looking PDF’s, but never had any tools other than Adobe reader!)….. to create a REALLY nice pdf….. The kind with a “table of contents”, if you will, along the left-hand side.

    I don’t want a TOC only at the top, or only links that mimic my Word bookmarks…I want one that’s frozen on the entire left side, always visible to reader. (in the resulting PDF)

  6. By Lita on Nov 23, 2009 | Reply

    Word has a kooky thing that it does with heading styles if you hard-return to create a page. It puts the code for the style at the end of the preceding page. This may be your answer, but I don’t know how to correct it other than spacing down (versus Ctrl-Enter) down to another page and then starting the heading style there.

  7. By Lita on Nov 23, 2009 | Reply

    Since you are staying within the same document and jumping around, I would suggest trying cross-reference to create links, instead of hyperlinks. These will point to a location even if it moves around in the document or changes names.

  8. By Linea on Oct 22, 2009 | Reply

    I have a long master document with many hyperlinks. About half of them don’t lead to the pages they’re supposed to; they stop at the bottom of the preceding page. Both my editor and I have recreated the hyperlinks to no avail. Can you help? Thanks!

  9. By Lainey on Oct 21, 2009 | Reply

    We have a very long document with hyperlinks to other parts of the document. This document is constantly being edited. Every time we add a new header before on of the existing headers that a hyperlink points to the hyperlink breaks. Is there a way to update hyperlink or get to to stay attached to a heading even when you add new sections?

  10. By Brian on Oct 7, 2009 | Reply

    We created a document in Word 2007 that has a table of contents hyperlinked to different sections of the document. Once I click one of the links, the text turns purple and remains that way, even if I highlight it and try to change its color. Is there a way to keep hyperlinks in Word 07 from changing color when they are clicked? Thanks.

  11. By Rajan Malhotra on Sep 13, 2009 | Reply

    Hi,

    If you are facing this problem ({TOC”1-3\h\z”}) or with {PAGE} tag or {HYPERLINK} tag then you need to make one change as follows:

    1. Go to Word Options.
    2. Click on Advanced Option in Left Pane.
    3. Scroll down till you get “show document content”.
    4. Uncheck “Show field codes instead of their values”.
    5. Press OK. It is done.

  12. By Jona on Sep 6, 2009 | Reply

    SUPER!! I´ve been trying to find out for a LONG time. THANKS!

  13. By asu on Jul 3, 2009 | Reply

    when i am converting word 2007 to pdf, how can i keep bookmarks or links in PDF format. I am using PDF creator as printer. any wat for that

  14. By Amrish Sharma on Jun 4, 2009 | Reply

    At first select the hyperlinked area and then top availavle options and change the color by selecting the blue colour through selecting “A” and also press the “U” section.then the selecting text will be underlined & blue in colour

  15. By Michael on Apr 30, 2009 | Reply

    Hello! I’m having a tough problem with Word 2007.
    I have a master document (10 pages) that I want to have clickable hyperlinks to reference other documents (emails, word docs, etc.)
    Here’s the tough part. How do I save the master doc and all the associated reference documents so that the single master document can be emailed? The recipient would then have the master document and the embedded docs. I can do this for a local document as the links reference a location on my pc, but when the file is emailed the references, obviously, no longer work.
    What’s the solution?

    Thanks a bunch.
    M

  16. By Jim Waller on Apr 25, 2009 | Reply

    I have a Word 2007 file that has several e-mail hyperlinks scattered throughout. I click on one hyperlink and it connects to outlook for an e-mail message. If I want, though, to do one e-mail message to all e-mail hyperlinks in this file, how would I do that?

  17. By Kirk on Apr 24, 2009 | Reply

    I’m using office 2007 and outlook 2007 and while creating an excel file with hyperlinks, I am unable to use the hyperlinks I have created due to receiving an error message “This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on your computer. Please contact your system administrator.” This also happens when I try to click a hyperlink in outlook 2007. How do I fix this.

  18. By Amrish Sharma on Apr 8, 2009 | Reply

    Hi;

    Actually I am using a Word 2007 but from last few of time my TOC & hyper links are not looking well.if you say i can also send you the some snapshots regarding the hyper links & TOC.

    Whenever i open a saved file then TOC looks as {TOC”1-3\h\z”} but whenever i open a same word doc then i have to again & again select the code “Toggle field codes” on each & every time.

    I dont know why it is happening.

  19. By Lionel on Apr 2, 2009 | Reply

    I have a word doc, It has lots of hyperlink, I like to change its color from black to blue w/ underline. How to I do it? Thanks

  20. By Loren on Feb 24, 2009 | Reply

    Hi Erllinda – if you want the hyperlink to look like the rest in the text in the document, you can select it, then change the font color to black and use the underline button to remove the underline (you might have to click the underline button a couple times).
    If you don’t have any other font colors or underlines to keep, you can insert multiple hyperlinks, select the entire document or multiple paragraphs, then change the font color/underline to change many hyperlinks at once.
    Another way is to change the Hyperlink style, if you want to make a more ongoing change.
    Hope that helps.

  21. By Erllinda on Feb 24, 2009 | Reply

    I am using word 2007 and I need to add “hidden hyperlinks” how do I do that?

  22. By Dave Garman on Feb 3, 2009 | Reply

    I am using Word 2003, creating bookmarks and then converting to Adobe PDFs with Acrobat 9. Is there a way to NOT have the bookmarks show up in the finished Adobe document as an underscore seperating the bookmarked words but rather remain a SPACE. IE: “New_York City_New York” looks very unprofessional in the finished PDF. Kindly respond to my email address if that’s at all possible
    Thank you!
    Dave

  23. By Loren on Jan 30, 2009 | Reply

    Hi Dave – In Word 2003, in the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options box, choose the Edit tab, and uncheck: Use Ctrl + click to follow link. OK to finish.
    Then you should be able to follow your links with a single-click.
    Good question, and thanks for stopping and posting it!

  24. By Dave on Jan 30, 2009 | Reply

    Hi I’m trying to remove the Ctrl + for Word 2003. Any idea how to do that?

  25. By Sagar on Jan 19, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks a Lot!!!
    Nice one and easy to understand. It was solved my problem also. Drafted the Document is simple and Superb

  26. By Part Mummy Part Me on Jan 13, 2009 | Reply

    At last! I’ve been wondering how to link index items to the relevant pages within the same document. All I could find was very confusing instructions.

    Thank you, my report is much more user friendly now.

  27. By JC on Dec 11, 2008 | Reply

    I am creating a document that will have 7 hyper links to the same page. I want to be able to click on one of these hyperlinks and then return from the hyperlinked page to the point from which I started, of the 7 hyperlinks.

    Is this possible in Word 2007?

  28. By Loren on Nov 25, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Terri – you can make your hyperlinks work with a single-click by clicking the Office button, then Word Options. Click Advanced in the left pane, and under Editing options uncheck the Use Ctrl + Click to follow hyperlink option. Now all links in your Word docs can be followed with a single-click.
    Note that this will only change how hyperlinks are handled on your computer; a computer where this setting hasn’t been changed will still use the Ctrl + Click.
    If you save the Word doc as a pdf file, the hyperlinks will work with a single-click.
    Hope this helps, I know it’s not quite the answer you were looking for.

  29. By Terri R. on Nov 25, 2008 | Reply

    In creating a paper on Word 2007, I inserted hyperlinks but when I went back to confirm that they took the reader to the site. I didn’t get the arrow, instead I got a message Ctrl + Click to follow link. This is a very primitive way of accessing the site(s). Is there a way to change something so the reader gets an arrow instead?

  30. By cheryl on Nov 21, 2008 | Reply

    Hello Everyone;

    Apparently Microsoft Office 2007 will not carry over the hyperlinks as the bookmarks cannot be merged. However; the Office 2004 on a Mac works perfectly. Im not sure how to fix this but hopefully someone from microsoft can figure it out.

    Thanks for all your help everyone!
    Cheryl

  31. By cheryl on Nov 12, 2008 | Reply

    Hello;

    Thank you for your help. When I merge the documents the pages are still the same. There is no extra pages. I tried this at home on my Mac office 2004 and it works perfectly. The problem is we are all using PC’s at work.
    Thanks for your help. Im wondering if Office 2007 does the same thing?
    Cheryl

  32. By Loren on Nov 11, 2008 | Reply

    Hello Cheryl – To clarify: you’re using Word 2003. You have a Word document that includes a TOC and a mailmerge using Excel 2003 data. The TOC is fine until you run the mailmerge, then you loose the links in the TOC.
    I tried setting up this scenario in Word 2003, and it did exactly the same thing you described: the TOC was no longer a field and it’s hyperlinks were stripped. And that makes sense: the merge adds additional pages, so how can the links know which of those pages to go to.
    I’m sorry to say that I don’t know of a solution for you. Perhaps someone else will present a solution. Sorry I couldn’t help – good luck, Cheryl!

  33. By Gary on Nov 7, 2008 | Reply

    Hi.

    Is there a way yet, to have Word 2007 create hyperlink index entries? Or a way to create them when converting to PDF?

    Thanks!

  34. By cheryl on Nov 7, 2008 | Reply

    Im using Microsoft Office 2003. When I perform a mailmerge my table of contents hyperlink once merged in the new document it will only hyperlink to the first page of the document. I have tried the Styles solution and it still is not working. When I perform this function on my Mac Office 2004 there is no problem. This Word document will be used by a number of people using the excel datasource as a merge. If this doesnt work than everyone will have to type in address names etc multiple different times in the document. Anyone have any ideas!

  35. By Loren on Oct 23, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Cheryl – it sounds like the styles that the TOC uses have gotten changed. The blue underline indicates “formatting inconsistency.” Does it help to update the TOC? Or to apply a different TOC? You could also try opening the Styles list and using the Style Inspector to see and more detail about what’s changed. It will show the applied styles and formatting for whatever text your cursor in in.
    Let me know if any of that helps. Good luck!

  36. By Jackie on Oct 23, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks so much for this. I’ve looked everywhere trying to find this answer!

  37. By cheryl on Oct 23, 2008 | Reply

    When I do a mail merge the hyperlinks in the table of contents in the document do not merge. I loose all the hyperlinks in the table of contents. Im using an excel data source to merge the common data and when the document is completed the Table of Contents comes out all underlined in Blue and there is no more hyperlinks to the pages within the document.
    Can anyone help!
    Thanks

  38. By Alfonso on Oct 9, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for your reply.

    This works.

  39. By Loren on Oct 7, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Alfonso – one way to do this is to select the entire document (Ctrl + A), then push Ctrl + Shift + F9. This will remove all fields from the document (hyperlinked text is a field), so if you are using any other fields, it will convert them to plain text as well. You could then print your document, and immediately use Undo (Ctrl + Z) to bring the fields back.
    You could also just select the parts of the document with the hyperlinks, rather than the whole document, before pushing Ctrl + shift + F9.
    Hope that works for you!

  40. By Alfonso on Oct 7, 2008 | Reply

    Hi,

    great site!

    I have several hyperlinks on a Word 2007 document. When the document is printed all hyperlinks appear underlined; this makes the document hard to read.

    My question: is there a way to suppress the underlining when printing the document?
    I don’t want to show that they are hyperlinks on a printed copy, just want to see the text.

    Thanks.

  41. By Louis on Sep 1, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks Loren! Love the site!

  42. By Loren on Aug 31, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Louis – it will depend on the program you use to create the PDF file. Word 2007’s built in PDF converter won’t do it, but a program like Adobe Acrobat would preserve them or allow you to add the links to the PDF file.

  43. By Louis on Aug 31, 2008 | Reply

    In the Footer section of Office Word 2007, how do I make the hyperlinks clickable after saving the document as a .PDF file?

    It appears as a clickable link in the PDF, but it’s not. :(

  44. By Loren on Aug 29, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for the compliment Stephanie! If you have any suggestions for other “how to” topics that I could create instructions for, please leave them in the comments.

  45. By Stephanie on Aug 29, 2008 | Reply

    This is a GREAT instructional site for using hyperlinks! Much easier to follow than Microsoft’s help instuctions. The visuals really make it simple. Thanks a million!

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