Getting Rid of Hyperlinks in Footnotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 16, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365


1

Dennis has a small macro that does a great job of removing hyperlinks from within a document. He just received a new document to work with, and it has quite a few hyperlinks in footnotes. The macro doesn't remove these hyperlinks, and removing them manually is a huge chore. Dennis wonders if there is a way to remove hyperlinks in footnotes all at once.

Actually, there is a way. You can manually do it, if you desire, by following these steps:

  1. Position the insertion pointer within the body of a footnote. (It doesn't matter which footnote.)
  2. Press Ctrl+A. This selects all of the footnotes. (If all of the text in your document is selected, it means you didn't perform step 1.)
  3. Press Ctrl+Shift+F9. This converts the hyperlinks in the selected text (the footnotes) to regular text.

You should note that these steps actually convert all fields in the selected text into regular text. Since hyperlinks are implemented through the use of fields, they are converted. But, so are any other fields that may be in your footnotes. If you don't want to change other fields, or if you have a need to deal with hyperlinks in footnotes quite a bit, you may want to, instead, use a macro.

The following macro will get rid of hyperlinks in only the footnotes:

Sub RemoveFNH()
    Dim h As Hyperlink

    With ActiveDocument
        If .Footnotes.Count >= 1 Then
            With .StoryRanges(wdFootnotesStory)
                For Each h In .Hyperlinks
                    h.Delete
                Next h
            End With
        End If
    End With
End Sub

Note that the important part of the macro is the specification of working with the wdFootnotesStory story range. Word documents can consist of multiple story ranges, each representing a different element, such as headers, footers, footnotes, etc. If you want to remove hyperlinks from all parts of your document (which means from all of the story ranges), then you can use an even shorter macro:

Sub RemoveAllHyperlinks()
    Dim r As Range
    Dim h As Hyperlink

    For Each r In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
        For Each h In rng.Hyperlinks
            h.Delete
        Next h
    Next r
End Sub

The macro steps through each of the story ranges in the document and, if there are hyperlinks in that story range, deletes each of them.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (4636) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

New Page Appears at Right of First Page

When you start typing in a new document and you get to the end of the first page, Word could place the next page at the ...

Discover More

Pasting a Hyperlink

When you paste information into a document, you can specify that it be inserted as a hyperlink rather than as normal ...

Discover More

Understanding the WinX Menu

Windows provides a special menu that allows you to easily access many common tools in the operating system. Here's the ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Using Cross-References in Footnotes

Need to make a cross-reference from one footnote to another footnote? You can do it if you throw bookmarks into the mix, ...

Discover More

Correctly Numbering Footnotes in a Chapter

Word is very flexible when it comes to adding footnotes to your document. If you have multiple sections within that ...

Discover More

Jumping to a Relative Footnote

Footnotes can be a great addition to any document that needs detailed referencing of citations. You can navigate from one ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is two minus 0?

2023-12-16 09:00:00

Robert Love

In the second macro, it looks like you've written "rng" where you meant "r".


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.