How do I globally remove hyperlinks in a forwarded document?

[Guest]

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Remove or unlink?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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[Guest]

Sorry for my lack of clarity. I want to unlink, to turn hyperlinks into
ordinary text, black not blue, and not underlined. I don't want to delete
the text that forms the hyperlink.

 

[Jay Freedman]

If the hyperlinks are the only fields in the document (i.e., no page
or date fields or any other kinds), you can select everything (Ctrl+A)
and press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to unlink all of them.

If the document contains both hyperlinks plus other types of fields
that you want to retain as fields, then you need this macro
(http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm):

Sub UnlinkAllHyperlinks()
Dim nHL As Long
For nHL = ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Count To 1 Step -1
ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks(nHL).Delete
Next
End Sub

(Yes, the .Delete method in VBA will unlink, not completely delete, a
hyperlink.)

 

[Guest]

Many thanks for this tip. Ctrl+Shift+F9 does indeed unlink the hyperlinks,
but does nothing for their appearance. Though they are now only plain text,
they are still blue and underlined. I know I can change those features from
the Font menu, but I wonder if there might be a way to do all these steps in
one: unlink and change appearance. In older versions of Word, unlinking did
make these changes, but W2007 seems not to, even when links are unlinked one
at a time.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Sorry, I don't see that behavior at all.

In Word, hyperlinks are blue and underlined because the character
style named "Hyperlink" is applied to them. When I unlink with Ctrl+A,
Ctrl+Shift+F9, the Hyperlink style is automatically removed along with
the links, and the text returns to the underlying paragraph style such
as Normal. This is the same in Word 2007 as in 2003. I don't know why
it doesn't seem to work for you.

If somehow Hyperlink style is still applied to the text after
unlinking, you can do one of two things:

- Modify the definition of the Hyperlink character style to be "No
underline" and color "Automatic".

- Use the Replace dialog. First click the More button to expand the
dialog. With the cursor in the Find What box, click the Format button,
Style, Hyperlink, OK. Move the cursor to the Replace With box and
click Format, Style, Default Paragraph Font, OK. Then click the
Replace All button.