Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007 and 2010. 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.
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/
We haven't tried this add-in, but it appears to do everything that Raghu wanted. Perhaps the best news: the add-in is free.
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 and 2010. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Checking for Valid Hyperlinks.
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2015-06-18 06:59:31
Lilli Hausenfluck
Thanks, Ken; you're right. I forgot that F11 will find other fields.
2015-06-17 05:54:41
Ken Endacott
F11 advances to the next field that may or may not be a hyperlink. If the document has few fields repeating F11 until no more fields are found is a solution to Pierre's problem. Otherwise, search for "HYPERLINK".
2015-06-16 10:01:07
Lilli Hausenfluck
To answer Pierre's question: F11 finds hyperlinks. If you start at the beginning of a document (this part is important) and press F11 and nothing happens, then your document has no hyperlinks. This doesn't test for live links, just answers Pierre's question.
2015-06-16 05:21:03
Ken Endacott
If not already displayed, turn on display field codes with ALT/F9 then carry out a Find for "HYPERLINK".
2015-06-15 11:40:31
Pierre Sundborg
Nice tip. But I'd like to do exactly the opposite. My document contains many Web addresses in source citations, and I believe I disabled all of them when inserted by selecting each link, then Ctrl-6. But, I'd like to be certain that there are NO active hyperlinks anywhere in the document. May I do that with Ctrl-A to select the entire (700 page, 92MB) document, then Ctrl-6 ? I'd like to know that won't do anything bad. Thanks!
2015-06-15 09:33:15
Joyce
I look to this site for tried-and-true solutions and I'm rarely disappointed. Consequently I just can't imagine why you would recommend a solution that you haven't even tried!
2015-06-15 08:53:57
Kevin Fitzgerald
Well, it's not exactly free. It has a 15 day trial period, then if you decide to keep it the cost is $9.95 USD.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007 and 2010. 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: 
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