Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 7, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
Ron wonders if there is a way for the Find and Replace feature to replace plain text with an active hyperlink. The answer depends on the type of replacement you want to do.
If you want to replace all occurrences of a text string with a hyperlink, then the task is relatively easy. For instance, you might want to replace all instances of a company's name with a "hyperlinked" version of the company name. You can do that by following these steps:
Figure 1. The Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
Each occurrence of the company name should now be replaced with the active hyperlink. The ^c characters in step 5 are the key here; they replace whatever you specify in step 4 with the contents of the Clipboard (which contains your hyperlink).
If your needs call for using Find and Replace to convert plain text hyperlinks (such as https://www.tips.net) into active hyperlinks, then this cannot be done. Instead, you'll need to either use Find and Replace (as described above) to do a separate operation on each hyperlink, or you'll need to simply place the insertion point after each hyperlink and press the Space Bar.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (8692) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Replacing Plain Text with a Hyperlink.
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2025-03-07 06:24:04
Ray McAllister
To replace multiple instances of a plain-text hyperlink with active hyperlinks, create the active hyperlink (space bar after text hyperlink). Then copy the active hyperlink to the clipboard. In search and replace, search for the plain text hyperlink, and use ^c in the replace field to replace with the newly created active hyperlink.
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