Easy Steps to Make Excel Hyperlinks Working

Here is a step-by-step guide with methods to resolve ‘Hyperlinks not working in Excel’ issue. Read on to learn more.

You must have come across the proverbial advice — “Do not put all your eggs in one basket”. Well, this advice doesn’t just apply to financial savings, but is also relevant to data, for which it translates like this — don’t store all your data in a single large database but instead maintain smaller databases that are easier to manage and don’t get corrupt.

This guiding principle has gained more relevance to the growing rate of data generation and reliance on software tools like Microsoft Excel to process the data.

However, users generally ignore this guiding principle and tend to stack the huge amount of information in a single Excel Workbook.

Such data heavy Excel workbooks have significant chances of corruption, with hyperlinks among the first elements that get affected. As a result, Excel hyperlinks do not work anymore, which affects the overall information sanity and user experience.

What exactly happens?

Suppose you’re managing the Sales records in an Excel workbook that has a variety of data associated with the final raw data. For instance, data related to regional monthly sales, monthly performance of individual team members and their incentives.

The problem arises when you implement hyperlinks to the classified sheets to assess employee performance and the hyperlinks don’t open. Many a time, this issue may crop up due to Workbook corruption, either due to storing a vast amount of data or abrupt Workbook shutdown.

So, how to resolve the ‘hyperlinks not working in Excel’ problem?

This blog post presents a few common causes of this problem along with the methods to fix them.

1. Changes in the hyperlinked worksheet file name

Have you renamed the worksheets that are linked through the hyperlinks? If you have renamed the target worksheets, the hyperlinks will not work, as expected.

Solution

1. Recreate the hyperlinks again to target the renamed worksheet.
2. Use correct address as available in the current worksheet.

The whole process may be tedious but better than the situation where you are unable to open the Excel Hyperlinks.

2. Abrupt shutdown and worksheet file closure

The hyperlinks and other data in a worksheet may present discrepancy in case of a sudden system shutdown, without proper saving and closure of the file. There is an inbuilt option in Excel to update Hyperlinks every time the workbook is saved. If these links are updated every time the workbook is saved, chances of the hyperlinks not working is increased.

Solution

Follow these steps to reinstate the Excel hyperlinks:

1. Open the Excel Options dialog box –

If you are using Excel2013 or Excel2016:

• Open Excel Workbook ->Go to File->Options->Advanced
• Scroll down to find the General tab and click on Web Options
• Web Options Window pops-up
• On Web Options, pop-up, Click on Files and Uncheck the box for “Update Links on save”
• Click OKbutton and your option is saved

The steps are also explained in the image below:

Uncheck the option to save Hyperlinks

2. If you are using Excel 2007, click the Office button->Excel Options and follow:

Step 1) to Step 5), as mentioned above and get the Excel Hyperlinks to work again.

Hopefully, you have got the Hyperlinks working now!

Excel Hyperlinks still not working?

There may be chances of the Excel hyperlinks not working even after troubleshooting. For all such cases, it is recommended to download and install the Stellar Repair for Excel tool. This tool offers excellent utility to repair Excel workbooks and troubleshoot the hyperlinks problem. The software works with all Microsoft Excel 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003, and 2000.

It recovers all components of the excel file including tables, charts, chart-sheets, cell comments, images, formulas, and more. You can repair multiple worksheets and fix ALL dysfunctional Excel hyperlinks across multiple worksheets in a single workbook. Click on the workbook, select all worksheets and start repairing.

You would also like to read MVP Review: Microsoft Excel File Repair Software

Easy, Fast and Hassle-free Solution

Troubleshooting for “Excel Hyperlinks not working” doesn’t involve much time but there is a possibility that what you get is not as expected, meaning the hyperlinks are not repaired. Stellar Repair for Excel lets you perform Hyperlink repair, scan and save the result in all new Excel file, without interfering with worksheet properties and cell formatting.