Avoid Automatic Hyperlinks

When you type a value that resembles an email Id or a web address, Excel tries to be smart and formats the value to a hyper-link and change the font colour to blue with an underline. While most of the times this is pleasant, few times when I don’t want a hyper-link to be created or what I typed is just not a mail ID, this puts me off.

So, what options do we have?

Turn Off the Auto Formatting

If you don’t want Excel to format any value to hyper-link  you can just turn off this feature. Follow the steps below to do this.

In Excel 2010 or later

File Tab > Options > Proofing tab > AutoCorrect options > AutoFormat as you type tab > clear the check box below Replace as you type (i.e. next to Internet and network paths with hyperlinks).

Excel 2007

Click the Microsoft office button > Excel Options > Proofing tab > AutoCorrect options > AutoFormat as you type tab > clear the check box below Replace as you type (i.e. next to Internet and network paths with hyperlinks).

In Excel 2003 or earlier

Tools menu > AutoCorrect options > > AutoFormat as you type tab > clear the check box below Replace as you type (i.e. next to Internet and network paths with hyperlinks).

Follow the same steps but check this box if you want to enable this feature. This feature was introduced in Excel 2000 but there is no way to turn off this in that version. Above steps can be done only in Excel 2002 or later.

Override the Formatting

This is a quick workaround. Whenever Excel changes the format, just press Ctrl+Z (undo command). You will get the value you entered without hyper-link.

Enter Value with Apostrophe

You can start typing the text in to the cell with an apostrophe (‘). Then Excel treats this value as absolute text and will not try to include hyper-links.