Hyperlinks are a core element of the Internet, and the very reason it’s also called “the World Wide Web.” However, you might not want hyperlinks in your Word documents. They add visual clutter, can pull the reader’s attention, and then divert it elsewhere.
That’s why we’re happy to inform you that if you want to know how to remove hyperlinks from Word documents, there are many ways to pull it off. We’ve compiled the following collection of the best – if not all – of them.
Method 1. Remove Hyperlinks in Word Document One by One
You don’t need any advanced or complicated solutions to remove a handful of hyperlinks from a Word document. Two clicks, and any link will be gone!
With Word active and your document loaded, right-click on the link you want to remove. Choose the appropriately named “Remove Hyperlink” function from the menu that pops up.
The same function is also available when you’re editing a hyperlink. Right-click on a hyperlink and choose “Edit Hyperlink.” In the Edit Hyperlink window, you can change the link by editing it in the “Address” field at the bottom of the window or erase it altogether by clicking Remove Link on the right.
It’s worth noting that this approach is excellent when dealing with two or three links but can get annoying as they multiply. Read on to find how you can get rid of dozens of hyperlinks in Word in one move.
Method 2. Remove All Hyperlinks in Word Document by Using Keyboard Shortcuts
Shortcuts offer quick and easy access to useful functions, but it’s hard to remember all of them, spread across all the apps we use every day. It’s easy to forget the ones we don’t use daily; even if, when needed, they can be true lifesavers.
For example, you can remove all hyperlinks from a Word document in under a second with the following approach. It only takes two simple key combinations!
Step 1. To get rid of all hyperlinks in a document you’ve loaded in Word, press CTRL + A to select everything in it.
Step 2. With your text selected, press CTRL + Shift + F9 at the same time. Almost immediately, you’ll see all hyperlinks in your Word document change to plain text. Clicking on them won’t lead away from your document anymore to some site or other online resource.
Method 3. Remove All Hyperlinks in Word Document while Pasting Text
If you’re copying and pasting content from the Web into a Word document, why postpone removing the links for later? You can do it while you’re bringing the content into the Word document, thanks to the following alternative pasting function!
Step 1. Start by copying content from a web page. Then, activate Word’s window, but don’t paste your content there yet. Instead, right-click and note that you have four Paste Options.
Step 2. Go for the last one, “Keep Text Only.” The content will be pasted in your Word document with no active hyperlinks included.
Method 4. Remove All Hyperlinks in Word Document Using the AutoCorrect Options
Even if you remove all hyperlinks from a document, Word will keep automatically turning any web address you type into an actual link. So, you either have to keep deactivating links, postpone their removal for the final edits of your document, or disable that “auto-linking” functionality.
This automatic modification of any typed linked into an active one is enabled by Word’s AutoCorrect functionality, which “fixes” what you type as you’re typing it.
Step 1. Visit Word’s File menu and choose the last entry, “Options,” from the list on the left.
Step 2. In the Word Options window, skip the General tab and go directly to Proofing. There, click on the redundantly named “AutoCorrect Options…” button.
Step 3. Locate and disable “Internet and network paths with hyperlinks” in the “AutoFormat As You Type” tab of AutoCorrect Options.
Step 4. Find the same option in the “AutoFormat” tab and also disable it.
After clicking on OK to accept the changes, no more typed links will be “activated” by Word’s AutoCorrect. Note that this tweak doesn’t affect existing links, which you’ll have to remove with one of the other methods we see here. Also, the change will remain active in the future until you manually re-enable the feature in AutoCorrect’s Options.
Method 5. Remove All Hyperlinks in Word Document with VBA
The most advanced – but also complicated – way to remove hyperlinks in Word is by using VBA scripts, where “VBA” stands for Visual Basic for Applications.
Theoretically, since VBA scripts are created with an actual programming language, they offer the most versatile solution. You can, for example, customize them so that they remove only particular links for specific sites. However, that’s also their major con, since writing such a script from scratch, or customizing an existing one, demands at least some familiarity with VBA’s syntax.
Thankfully, the fine folks at Extend Office have already created two such scripts that we will borrow for this article. The first one allows you to remove all hyperlinks from the document in an active Word window. In contrast, the second one can work on multiple open windows to “clean” many documents with a single click.
Step 1. To use those scripts, run Word and load a document from which you want to remove all hyperlinks.
Step 2. Press Alt + F11 to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
Step 3. Choose Module from the Insert menu.
Step 4. Now, you can follow one of two paths. Copy the following script and paste it into your newly created module if you want to remove all hyperlinks from the document in Word’s active window.
Sub ' Loop through all open documents:
For Each doc In Application.Documents
' Store the document name
szOpenDocName = doc.Name
' Remove the hyperlinks from that document
With Documents(szOpenDocName)
' Loop while there are hyperlinks afoot!
While .Hyperlinks.Count > 0
.Hyperlinks(1).Delete
Wend
End With
' Shut this off, don't need anymore popping up
Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceHyperlinks = False
Next doc
End SubKillTheHyperlinksInAllOpenDocuments()
' -----------------------------------------------
' Removes all hyperlinks from any open documents
' Text to display is left intact
' -----------------------------------------------
Dim doc As Document
Dim szOpenDocName As String
' Loop through all open documents:
For Each doc In Application.Documents
' Store the document name
szOpenDocName = doc.Name
' Remove the hyperlinks from that document
With Documents(szOpenDocName)
' Loop while there are hyperlinks afoot!
While .Hyperlinks.Count > 0
.Hyperlinks(1).Delete
Wend
End With
' Shut this off, don't need anymore popping up
Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceHyperlinks = False
Next doc
End Sub
Alternatively, you can use the second script that follows to remove all hyperlinks from multiple documents loaded in many active Word windows.
Sub ' Loop through all open documents:
For Each doc In Application.Documents
' Store the document name
szOpenDocName = doc.Name
' Remove the hyperlinks from that document
With Documents(szOpenDocName)
' Loop while there are hyperlinks afoot!
While .Hyperlinks.Count > 0
.Hyperlinks(1).Delete
Wend
End With
' Shut this off, don't need anymore popping up
Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceHyperlinks = False
Next doc
End SubKillTheHyperlinksInAllOpenDocuments()
' -----------------------------------------------
' Removes all hyperlinks from any open documents
' Text to display is left intact
' -----------------------------------------------
Dim doc As Document
Dim szOpenDocName As String
' Loop through all open documents:
For Each doc In Application.Documents
' Store the document name
szOpenDocName = doc.Name
' Remove the hyperlinks from that document
With Documents(szOpenDocName)
' Loop while there are hyperlinks afoot!
While .Hyperlinks.Count > 0
.Hyperlinks(1).Delete
Wend
End With
' Shut this off, don't need anymore popping up
Application.Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceHyperlinks = False
Next doc
End Sub
Step 5. Done copying and pasting one of the two above scripts into your module? Either click on the “Play” button on the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window’s toolbar or press F5 on your keyboard to run the script. Soon after, all hyperlinks will be gone.
Method 6. Remove All Hyperlinks in Word Document Using A Third-party Tool
Finally, you can turn to third-party tools that can extend Word’s functionality. One such solution is Extend Office’s Kutools for Word. With Kutools for Word, you can remove hyperlinks from either a selected piece of text or the whole Word document.
Step 1. First, download Kutools for Word.
Step 2. Run the downloaded installer to set up Kutools for Word. Note that you should already have Word installed – Kutools for Word isn’t a standalone solution. When the installation completes, by default, the installer will launch Kutools for Word.
Step 3. With Kutools installed and active and the document from which you want to remove all hyperlinks loaded into Word, choose Kutools from Word’s main menu. Then, click on Remove > Remove Hyperlinks to do precisely that.
Step 4. Kutools will ask you if you really want to remove all hyperlinks. Click on the OK button to do that.
Step 5. When Kutools completes its task, it will inform you about the number of hyperlinks it located and removed.
FAQs About Hyperlinks in Word Document
Question: What’s the best way to remove hyperlinks from a Word document?
Answer: If it’s only a handful of links, you can directly right-click on each and choose “Remove Hyperlink.” When dealing with more links, it’s better to look at the other solutions we covered above that allow removing all links in one go.
Question: Can I use Word to remove hyperlinks from non-Word documents?
Answer: Yes. Word might work best with its own “official formats”, Doc and DocX, but it’s also compatible with many more. So, the simple way to answer this question is that “if you can load your document in Word, then you can do to it whatever you can to a Doc or DocX file”. However, to preserve all Word-related information afterward, it’s suggested you save a new copy of your document in one of Word’s formats. Don’t expect features like Password Protection to work on a TXT file.
Question: Is there any side-effect when removing hyperlinks in Word?
Answer: “No,” in that it won’t affect the content of your document in any way. However, it’s a “yup” regarding interactivity: former links won’t “connect your document to the web” anymore (useful for content like citations).
It’s best to go through your document before removing any links and check for occurrences of ones you’d like to keep active. Then, maybe include them in footnotes or a separate page in your document.
Conclusion
As we saw, you can solve problems like a bunch of unwanted hyperlinks in many ways. You can remove one or two (or five) links “The Manual Way”, right-clicking and removing them one-by-one. Or, you can use a batch solution to get rid of all hyperlinks in a Word document with a single click.
We feel we have to mention a final way we’ve seen others “dealing with this problem” without actually doing that: by… changing the color of the links! We guess that if you want to keep the “interactivity” of your document intact but also keep annoyingly colored links from breaking the reading “flow,” that’s one way to go. Select everything, paint it black, and there: problem solved! Who needs VBA scripts and solutions like Kutools when Word’s support for colors (and maybe some duct tape) can solve most problems?
