Hyperlinks are now a standard fixture in Office documents, but many users don’t know much beyond how to click on them. Susan Harkins has rounded up an assortment of tweaks for fine-tuning the behavior of hyperlinks and using them for specialized tasks.

Hyperlinks reduce the task of retrieving data to a quick click. As a side benefit, they reduce typos and other mistakes you might make if you had to do the work of a hyperlink manually. For the most part, inserting a hyperlink is easy work. But you might not be using them to their (or your) best advantage. There’s more to hyperlinks than a little formatting and quick access. Here are a few tricks you can use to make the most of the hyperlink functionality in Office.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Control how Word follows a hyperlink

At the settings level, there are two ways to control how to follow a link. By default, when you hover the mouse over a hyperlink, the application displays a ScreenTip with the link’s address and instructions to hold down Ctrl while clicking the link. Alternately, you can right-click the link and choose Open Hyperlink from the resulting context menu. Since most of us are use to a single click, you might find this configuration annoying. Fortunately, you can change it:

#2: Add a custom ScreenTip

The hyperlink ScreenTip lets you check the link’s address before clicking, which is the smart thing to do. Don’t let hyperlinks take you anywhere you shouldn’t or don’t want to go.

If necessary, you can usurp the default message to display a custom message, as follows:

1. Position the cursor anywhere inside the link, right-click, and choose Edit Hyperlink from the context menu. Or just click Insert Hyperlink on the Standard toolbar. Office 2007 users will find Hyperlink in the Links group on the Insert tab.
2. In the Edit Hyperlink dialog box, click the ScreenTip button.
3. Enter the custom text you want to use as the hyperlink’s ScreenTip, as shown in Figure A.

Figure A: Enter a custom ScreenTip.

1. Click OK.

Hovering over the link will display your custom message, as shown in Figure B, instead of the default.

Figure B: Instead of displaying the link’s path, you can display a custom message.

#3: Link to a specific Excel sheet or cell

Creating a hyperlink to an Excel workbook is easy enough. You click the Insert Hyperlink tool on the Standard toolbar, use the Look In control to locate the workbook you want to link to, enter the display text, and press OK.

However, there’s no simple point-and-click method to specify a specific sheet, cell, or named range in a workbook. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. To open an Excel workbook to a specific sheet, cell, or named range, add the information to the address in the following form, respectively:

workbook.xls#’sheetname‘

workbook.xls#’sheetname‘!cell

workbook.xls#namedrange

#4: Fix Outlook hyperlinks that don’t work

Occasionally, the links in Outlook or Outlook Express stop working. They’re not broken, they just don’t work. There are a number of reasons this might happen. If you’re lucky, your popup manager is the problem. Before you spend a lot of time troubleshooting, hold down Ctrl and click the link. If it works, great; if not, trudge on.

Next, check the default browser setting. If you’re using Internet Explorer, choose Internet Options from the Tools menu and click the Programs tab. Check the Tell Me If Internet Explorer is Not The Default Web Browser option. Firefox and other browsers have a similar setting.

If you’ve recently switched browsers, your system could be confused. Check your folder options and reset the browser, as follows (in Windows XP):

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel.
2. Open the Folder Options settings and click the File Types tab.
3. Select (NONE) URL: HyperText Transfer Protocol from the Registered File Types list.
4. Click Advanced. Then, click Edit in the resulting dialog box.
5. Check the Application control. It should contain a reference to your browser. For instance, Figure C lists Internet Explorer, IExplorer, as the current system’s browser. Change the application if necessary by clicking Browse and locating the appropriate browser .exe file.

Figure C: Change the system browser.

The final problem may be a missing registry key or value. If that’s the case, the fix is usually simple. From the Start menu, choose Run and then enter

regsvr32 urlmon.dll

Click OK and then clear the resulting confirmation message. If that doesn’t fix the problem, run the following commands from Run:

#5: Avoid hyperlink text missteps

Hyperlinks have been around a while and most users are familiar with them. Effective links use meaningful text that describes the link’s purpose or target. Readers should know why they’re clicking and where they’re going when they do. Here are a few hyperlink text don’ts:

• Don’t use the hyperlink text “Click Here.” Your users don’t need a map to use links. In fact, you might find that people skim right over “Click Here” links.
• Don’t hyperlink several sentences or an entire paragraph.
• Don’t hyperlink verbs.
• Don’t issue commands. (”Click Here” is a command.)

For instance, “More information on creating good hyperlinks is available” is much better than Click here for more information on creating good hyperlinks or More information on creating good hyperlinks is available. The first example is succinct and clear.

#6: Hyperlink to open a new document

Opening a new document is simple enough, but you can make the task even easier with a hyperlink:

1. Choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu or click Insert Hyperlink on the Standard menu. Office 2007 users will find Hyperlink in the Links group on the Insert tab.
2. Click Create New Document.
3. Enter a name for the new document, worksheet, or presentation.
4. Check one of the edit options.
5. Click OK.
6. Click the hyperlink to open a new document.

You might add this type of hyperlink to a custom template or a document that doesn’t display the standard menus and tools. Users who are unfamiliar with the application will also find this hyperlink useful.

#7: Move and hyperlink at the same time

You can both move and define text as a hyperlink with one purposeful effort. Simply select the text and right-click it. (In Excel, right-click a cell border.) Then, drag the text to a new location and release the mouse button. When you do, the application will display the menu shown in Figure D. Choose Create Hyperlink Here. To edit the new hyperlink, right-click it and choose Edit Hyperlink.

Figure D: Right-click to move and define text as a hyperlink.

#8: Stop hyperlink hijacks

If your browser is open when you click a hyperlink in another application, Windows sometimes dumps the current page and opens the hyperlinked page. You can click Back or you can alter Internet Explorer’s behavior — this is really an IE problem and not a hyperlink problem. If you want Internet Explorer to open hyperlinks in a new window, reset the Reuse Windows For Launching Shortcut setting as follows:

1. Choose cialis dosages Internet Options from the Tools menu.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. In the Browsing section, uncheck the Reuse Windows For Launching Shortcut (When Tabbed Browsing is Off) option.
4. Click OK.

#9: Control the link instead of browser settings

You can’t always control the browser, but you can force the issue by including appropriate instructions in the link itself. Doing so takes a bit of work, but it’s worth it if you need the control. To enter a hyperlink that opens in a new window, do the following:

1. Enter this field code:
   HYPERLINK “http://URL“no
2. Highlight the entire field code.
3. Press Ctrl + 9.
4. Click inside the code.
5. Press F9.

Now the code appears as a traditional hyperlink with a custom ScreenTip, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E: Force the default browser to open a link in a new window.

#10: Stop address formatting

By default, Office applications format a URL or e-mail address as a hyperlink. This setting is helpful to most users. This setting can be annoying if you don’t want the address formatted. To undo the format, you can press backspace or Ctrl + Z. If you unformat links most of the time, disable the setting as follows:

1. Select AutoCorrect from the Tools menu. If you’re using Office 2007, click the Office button and then click application Options (at the bottom right). Select Proofing in the left pane and then click AutoCorrect Options in the AutoCorrect Options section.
2. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
3. Uncheck the Internet and Paths With Hyperlinks option in the Replace section.
4. Click OK.

This is an all or nothing feature, though. If you disable it, you’ll have to format hyperlinks manually.

#11: Automate e-mail responses

Clicking an e-mail address hyperlink opens the default e-mail client and fills in the address. You can also fill in the subject and even the body of the message from the hyperlink using a few HTML tricks. Doing so is helpful when you want to control responses. The form you’re used to is a simple e-mail address:

address@domain.com

To control the subject text, use the following form:

address@domain.com?Subject=subjecttext

Enter message text using this form:

address@domain.com?Subject=subjecttext&Body=bodytext

Unfortunately, you can’t reliably use space characters. Replace all space characters with %20. If you don’t, the link stops at the first space character.

The following hyperlink, when clicked, displays the window shown in Figure F:

ssharkins@gmail.com?Subject=Hyperlink%20Article&Body=I%20loved%20your%20TechRepublic%20article%20on%20hyperlinks

Figure F: The hyperlink filled in the address, the subject, and entered a short message.

#12: View Outlook contacts

You can use a hyperlink to quickly display contact information in Outlook from other applications. For example, the following form opens contactname in Outlook contact’s window:

Outlook:\\Personal%20Folders\Contacts\~contactname

For more codes, search Outlook’s Help on “Types of Hyperlinks.”

#13: Quick hyperlink toolbars in Outlook

Outlook has a neat hyperlink trick — you can hyperlink any file, application, Web page, or e-mail address from the toolbar. To add a hyperlink toolbar button, do the following:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Customize and click the Commands tab.
2. Drag any button (not menus) to the toolbar.
3. Right-click the button, choose Assign Hyperlink, and then select Open.
4. Enter the path to the hyperlink’s destination and any other hyperlink properties you like.
5. Click OK and then close the Customize dialog box.

Generally, you’ll want to use a button image that represents the hyperlink’s task. If there’s no image, use a ScreenTip or the button’s Name property to display meaningful text.

Are you an MS Office user who likes to customize your workspace?

Specifically, do you do a lot of toolbar customizing?

(Obviously, most of the 2007 programs don't have toolbars, so this doesn't apply to those. However, Outlook and Publisher 2007 still use the old menu and toolbar system and it does work for them).

Here are a couple of quick tricks for you. These are anytime customizations that may help you along your way.

• To cialis da 5 mg copy a toolbar button, press Ctrl + Alt while dragging the button to a new location.

• To remove a toolbar button, press the Alt key while dragging the button into the document. When you release the mouse button, you'll find that it disappears. (A great way to make extra space is by getting rid of the things you just don't use).

Avoid the hassle of manually importing Word form data into Excel. With the help of an Excel wizard, you can quickly step through the process.

Word forms provide a convenient way to gather information from users or clients so that you can analyze it later. But bringing the data into Excel can be a big chore. To avoid having to manually enter the data into a worksheet, let Excel’s Text Import wizard bring it in for you. To demonstrate, let’s say you’ve asked employees to complete the form shown in Figure A.

Figure A

Follow these steps to save the data in each completed form to a text file that can be imported into Excel:

Figure B

You can now import the data in the text files into a spreadsheet by following these steps:

1. cialis canadian pharmacy
   Open a blank worksheet in Excel.
2. Go to Data | Import External Data | Import Data. (In Excel 2007, click the Data tab, click Get External Data, and then select From Text.)
3. Click the text file you want to import, then click Import.
4. Select the Delimited option (Figure C) and then click Next.

Figure C

1. For this example, clear the Tab check box and then select the Comma check box (Figure D).

Figure D

1. Click Next and then click Finish.
2. Click in cell A1 and then click OK.

Figure E shows the resulting data. Note that headers have been inserted above the data in row one.

Figure E

To import the second text file, you just open the same Excel worksheet and click in the second row below the last row of data; in this case, A4. (The wizard forces you to skip a row each time you add a new row of data. You can delete these blank rows later.)

Important note: If you need to enter more than a handful of forms a day, you should consider using ADO (ActiveX Data Object) to create a code connection to the worksheet that will automate the data transfer process.

Set up a simple form that can quickly tell you how long you’ve been working on a project. Mary Ann Richardson walks through the process.

Do you need to know how long you’ve spent on a project? You can create an Access form that will answer that question for you. Follow these steps:

Figure A

1. Right-click the second text box and select Properties.
2. Click in the ControlSource property box and under the Data tab, click the Build button.
3. Type the following function code as shown in Figure B:
   =DateDiff(”m”,[ProjectStart],Now())

Figure B

1. Click OK.
2. Close and save the form as Total Work Calculations.

When you run the form and enter a date in the ProjectDate text box, Access will automatically display the number of months from the entered date to today, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C

Word lets you insert a graphic into a document’s header or footer. Excel’s not so flexible, but you can cheat. Insert the graphic and specify it using the Print Titles feature. Excel will print the graphic at the top of each printed page, which is really what you want — header or not.

The first step is to get the graphic into the workbook. Try to insert it into cell A1 and then adjust the cell’s height to accommodate it, but that might not work. Depending on the size of the graphic, Excel might insert cialis c10 it as is, usurping several rows and columns. To insert a graphic, choose Picture from the Insert menu, select From File, locate the file, and then click Insert. In Excel 2007, click Picture in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab.

The next step is to identify the graphic using the Titles feature as follows:

Click Print Preview to view the graphic on all pages of the worksheet. You can’t really tell, but the following picture shows the second page of a long sheet, and each page displays the same graphic at the top.