How do I stop Excel from turning email addresses into hyperlinks?

July 16, 2004 7:23 AM

StupidQuestionFilter:
Microsoft Excel 2000 v 9.0 - is there some way to stop excel from automatically turning email addresses into hyperlinks? Not just turning off the 'blue and underlined' format but actually not making them links. I've done it before in other versions of excel but I can't find a way to do it in this version. Thanks!
posted by anastasiav to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Two options:

1. Check your AutoFormat settings. When I type in an email address, the little AutoFormat lightning bolt presents itself, allowing me to turn off hyperlinking, either for that cell only or for all hyperlinks.
2. Precede the email address with a single quote: ' . If that's the first character in the cell, Excel turns off all formatting, hyperlinking, formulae, etc. for that data and presents it as-is.

If you already have a number of email addresses you're trying to un-hyperlink, there's a hack spelled out in the Excel help:

1. Type the number 1 in a blank cell, and right-click the cell.
2. Click Copy on the shortcut menu.
3. While pressing CTRL, select each hyperlink you want to deactivate. (To select a cell that has a hyperlink in it without jumping to the hyperlink destination, click the cell and hold the mouse button until the cursor becomes a cross, then release the mouse button.)
4. Click Paste Special on the Edit menu.
5. Under Operation, click Multiply and then click OK.

Freaky, but it works!
posted by DrJohnEvans at 7:39 AM on July 16, 2004

More solutions here.
posted by toby\flat2 at 8:21 AM on July 16, 2004

Thank you!!
posted by anastasiav at 9:35 AM on July 16, 2004

Undo works, too, in a way. After you type in the cell and move to the next cell, the link turns blue and underlined. If you Undo (Ctrl-Z) just once, it undoes the formatting, but not what you entered.

I'd love to be able to uncheck that in AutoFormat the way you can in AutoCorrect for word, but my older version of Excel does not seem to support that.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:33 AM on July 16, 2004