Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Checking for Valid Hyperlinks.

Checking for Valid Hyperlinks

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 18, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


1

Raghu has a document that has a good number of hyperlinks in it to various Websites. He wants to step through each of the hyperlinks and have them checked, programmatically, to see if they are valid links that don't generate errors.

There is no way to do this automatically in Word, as such functionality is not built into the program. If you only have a few links in the document, you might try saving it as an HTML file. You could then load the file in Internet Explorer and click each link to see if it is valid.

If you are searching for a more automatic method of checking, you would need to create a macro that would step through the links in a document and check them out. The VBA code could end up being rather complex.

Perhaps a better solution, rather than writing your own code, is to use a third-party add-in that can do the checking for you. In searching around, the following add-in was discovered:

https://www.ablebits.com/word-links-checker/

This add-in is free for a trial period to make sure it does what you want it to do.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11109) 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: Checking for Valid Hyperlinks.

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

Adjusting Row Height for Your Text

Want Excel to automatically adjust the height of a worksheet row when it wraps text within the cell? It's easy to do, ...

Discover More

Cannot Set Heading Rows in a Table

Word allows you to specify which rows in a table should be considered headings. What if setting the headings doesn't work ...

Discover More

Worksheet Events

You can create macros that are automatically executed whenever certain events occur within a worksheet. This tip details ...

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)

Editing a Hyperlink

Word allows you to embed active hyperlinks in your documents. If you later want to change or edit that hyperlink, you can ...

Discover More

Creating Hyperlinks from E-mail Addresses

Got a document that has a whole raft of e-mail address in it? You can easily convert all of them to clickable hyperlinks ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of Many Hyperlinks

Need to get rid of hyperlinks that result when you paste information from the Internet into your document? Here's some ...

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?

2018-01-22 16:59:18

Karyn

Generally I get around this by creating a "references" set in the document and having all external hyperlinks there, and there only. Where I need to reference one of these hyperlinks, I just create an internal reference to it.

Sweet!


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.