Adding Hyperlinks to a Worksheet in Excel 2007

Hyperlinks automate Excel worksheets by making the opening of other Office documents and Excel workbooks and worksheets just a mouse click away. It doesn't matter whether these documents are located on your hard drive, a server on your LAN (Local Area Network), or Web pages on the Internet or a company's intranet.

You can also set up e-mail hyperlinks that automatically address messages to co-workers with whom you routinely correspond, and you can attach Excel workbooks or other types of Office files to these messages.

The hyperlinks that you add to your Excel worksheets can be of the following types:

• Text entries in cells (known as hypertext normally formatted as underlined blue text)
• Clip art and imported graphics from files you've inserted into the worksheet
• Graphics you've created from the Shapes drop-down gallery on the Insert tab - in effect, turning the graphic images into buttons.

When creating a text or graphic hyperlink, you can make a link to another Excel workbook or other type of Office file, a Web site address (using the URL address - you know, that monstrosity that begins with http://), a named location in the same workbook, or even a person's e-mail address. The named location can be a cell reference or named cell range in a particular worksheet.

To add the hyperlink to the text entry made in the current cell or a selected graphic object in your worksheet, follow these steps:

1) Click the Hyperlink button on the Ribbon's Insert tab or press Alt+NI, or simply press Ctrl+K.

Excel opens the Insert Hyperlink dialog box in which you indicate the file, the Web address (URL), or the named location in the workbook.

2a) To have the hyperlink open another document, a Web page on a company's intranet, or a Web site on the Internet, click the Existing File or Web Page button if it isn't already selected; then enter the file's directory path or Web page's URL in the Address text box.

If the document you want to link to is located on your hard drive or a hard drive that is mapped on your computer, click the Look In dropdown button and select its folder and then select the file in the list box below.

If you've recently opened the document you want to link to, you can click the Recent Files button and then select it from the list box. If the document you want to link to is located on a Web site and you know its Web address (the www.dummies.com/excel2k.htm–likething), you can type it into the Address text box. If you recently browsed the Web page you want to link to, you can click the Browsed Pages button and then select the address of the page from the list box.

2b) To have the hyperlink move the cell cursor to another cell or cell range in the same workbook, click the Place in This Document button. Next, type in the address of the cell or cell range in the Type the Cell Reference text box or select the desired sheet name or range name from the Or Select a Place in This Document list box.

2c) To open a new e-mail message addressed to a particular recipient, click the E-mail Address button and then enter the recipient's e-mail address in the E-mail Address text box.

In most cases, your e-mail program is Windows Mail on Windows Vista or Outlook Express on Windows XP or Microsoft Outlook 2007 if you purchased a version of Microsoft Office 2007 that includes this personal information manager plus e-mail program.

As soon as you begin typing the e-mail address in the E-mail Address text box, Excel inserts the text mailto: in front of whatever you've typed. (mailto: is the HTML tag that tells Excel to open your e-mail program when you click the hyperlink.)

If you want the hyperlink to add the subject of the e-mail message when it opens a new message in your e-mail program, enter this text in the Subject text box.

If the recipient's address is already displayed in the Recently Used E-mail Addresses list box, you can enter it into the E-mail Address text box simply by clicking that address in this list box.

3) (Optional) To change the hyperlink text that appears in the cell of the worksheet (underlined and in blue) or add text if the cell is blank, type the desired label in the Text to Display text box.

4) (Optional) To add a ScreenTip to the hyperlink that appears when you position the mouse pointer over the hyperlink, click the ScreenTip button, type in the text that you want to appear next to the mouse pointer in the ScreenTip Text box, and click OK.

5) Click OK to close the Insert Hyperlink dialog box.

After you create a hyperlink in a worksheet, you can follow it to whatever destination you associated with the hyperlink. To follow a hyperlink, position the mouse pointer over the underlined blue text (if you assigned the hyperlink to text in a cell) or over the graphic image (if you assigned the hyperlink to a graphic inserted in the worksheet). When the mouse pointer changes to a hand with the index finger pointing upward, click the hypertext or graphic image, and Excel makes the jump to the designated external document, Web page, cell within the workbook, or e-mail message.

REMEMBER: After you follow a hypertext link to its destination, the color of its text changes from the traditional blue to a dark shade of purple (without affecting its underlining). This color change indicates that the hyperlink has been used. (Note, however, that graphic hyperlinks do not show any change in color after you follow them.) Also, Excel automatically restores this underlined text to its original (unfollowed) blue color the next time that you open the workbook file.

WARNING: If you need to edit a hyperlink attached to worksheet cell or graphic object, you must be careful that, when getting Excel into Edit mode so that you can change the text, you don't inadvertently follow the link. When dealing with hypertext in a cell, you must click and hold down the mouse button a few seconds to select the cell (if you click and release immediately, you follow the link). When dealing with a graphic object you’re best off right-clicking the image and then clicking the appropriate editing command (Edit Hyperlink or Remove Hyperlink) on its shortcut menu.

Tags: links,worksheet,ScreenTip

Related Articles