Removing Hyperlinks without a Macro

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 16, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


4

Looking for a quick, easy way to remove hyperlinks without a macro? Believe it or not, you can accomplish this by using the Paste Special features of Excel. Follow these steps:

  1. In a blank cell, enter the number 1.
  2. Select the cell and press Ctrl+C. The cell content (1) is now copied to the Clipboard.
  3. Hold down the Ctrl key as you click each hyperlink you want to remove.
  4. Choose Paste Special from the Edit menu. Excel displays the Paste Special dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
  5. Figure 1. The Paste Special dialog box.

  6. Select the Multiply radio button.
  7. Click OK. All the hyperlinks are removed, but the text of the hyperlinks remain.
  8. Delete the cell you created in step 1.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2373) applies to Microsoft Excel 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. ...

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What is five more than 3?

2017-06-13 12:13:51

M-Michael

Worked for me in Excel 2010. Thanks


2017-04-05 12:20:23

Ken

This solution does not work. The hyperlinks remain.


2017-02-06 05:33:45

Barry

@P Mitchell

Prefix typing your new entries with an apostrophe ( ' ) which will explicitly tell Excel to treat that entry as text.

I don't why but Excel is still parsing your input and will add hyperlinks to email addresses and website addresses, even though the cells are formatted as "Text". Other numeric input (numbers, dates, times, etc.) are not parsed and just treated as text as you'd expect.


2017-02-06 01:47:22

P Mitchell

I am a subscriber.

I have a 70+ club membership in 2000. Any time I add or modify an email address, it is changed to a hyperlink, even though the column is formatted as "text". If I am not careful it starts a browser and tries to connect...@#%&*.


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