# excel and email addresses...help **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 24, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767 "2003-03-24T13:38:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![biker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce7236/32.png) [@biker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/1 "2003-03-24T13:38:54Z")
in the excel data base i am keeping for an organization email addresses are part of the information to be listed. everytime i type in an email address in comes up as a shortcut, in blue and a line underneath. can not figure out how to stop this from happening. i want the email address to be just plain type. i tried the “show as typed” and it still came up as a shortcut. is there anyway to stop this? microsoft word does the same damn thing. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/2 "2003-03-24T13:45:33Z")
You have to have a document open with a formatted hyperlink in it (i.e. displaying a link the way you don’t want it too), then do the following: Open **Format** \> **Style** and select “Hyperlink”. Uncheck all of the formatting options and click **OK**. From this point on all hyperlinks will appear in plain text. In Word you can format the “Hyperlink” style in any document, regardless of whether it already contains links. Unfortunately I have not worked out a way to apply the change retroactively to existing text. I tested this in Excel 2000; hopefully there it works in a similar fashion in other versions. As a side note, if you hit CTRL-Z (undo) immediately after the program has formatted a link it will undo the formatting but leave the text. This works in both Word and Excel. ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/3 "2003-03-24T15:05:55Z")
Click and hold a cell with a hyperlink in it… (this selects the cell rather than clicking the link) then select “stop creating hyperlinks” or something like that… i can’t remember, i just did it and now i don’t know how to undo it! but it works ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/4 "2003-03-24T15:13:14Z")
to get rid of all the underlines that are already there, highlight the whole sheet and then click on the Underline button! (remembering of course that this will also get rid of anything you have deliberately underlined) ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/5 "2003-03-24T15:21:36Z")
heh…ignore that, wasn’t thinking of course that that won’t get rid of the hyperlink! Worked out another way to do it easily though. If you’ve never done macros before, never fear, this one is dead easy! 1. Select a cell with a hyperlink in it. 2. click on the TOOLS menu, select MACRO, then RECORD NEW MACRO 3. give it a name (something like “removehyperlink” for future reference). Click ok (you are now in recording mode and excel will remember all the steps you’re about to perform - you should see a small menu pop up with a stop button on it) 4. right click in the cell you are in with the hyperlink and select remove hyperlink. 5. Press the stop button on the macro menu that popped up. 6. to remove all the hyperlinks on your page select all cells 7. go to the TOOLS menu, then MACRO then Macros… 8. Click on the macro you just created and click RUN You can also asign this macro to a menu button for futher use etc…but you’ll have to look that up in help or a tutorial cause i’m not going to try and explain it all here 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/6 "2003-03-24T15:23:53Z")
**ok - one more thing…just found where you turn the auto-hyperlink option on/off.** Go to the TOOLS menu, then AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS, then click the AutoCorrect As You Type tab and select or deselect Internet and Network Paths with Hyperlink Ok…think i’m done now…got any more questions? hehe ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/7 "2003-03-24T15:52:11Z")
I assume you want more than just having it appear as plain type, you want it to be plain text, not a hyperlink. Here are your options: 1. Hitting control-z as soon as Excel converts the text to a hyperlink will undo those formatting changes, but that is annoying. 2. To undo these later than that, right click on the cell, select Hyperlink, then select Remove Hyperlink. Unfortunately, this has to be done one cell at a time; Word has a keyboard shortcut (control-shift-f9) that will remove all URLs in a selected block of text, but this does not work in Excel. 3. If you are using Excel 2002 you can turn this feature off in teh AutoCorrect menu. 4. Also, if you can get in the habit, when you know you are going to enter text in a cell that will be converted into a hyperlink, start the text with an apostrophe (’). The apostrophe won’t appear in the cell, but will cause the cell to render as plain text (you can also use this to override other automatic formatting in cells, such as for numbers and dates). 5. Finally, you can create a macro to remove all hyperlinks after the fact. Hit Alt-F11 which will open the Visual Basic editor, select Insert then Module. In that window paste this: Sub RemoveHyperlinks() Cells.Hyperlinks.Delete End Sub Now, close that window and then the Visual Basic Window. Back in your spreadsheet, select Tools, then Macro, then Macros. This will pop a new window, in which RemoveHyperlinks should be listed. Select it and click Run. All hyperlinks in your spreadsheet will be removed and replaced with plain text. ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/8 "2003-03-24T16:10:39Z")
well…at least you included ONE thing i hadn’t mentioned LOL ---
**Author:** ![biker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce7236/32.png) [@biker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/9 "2003-03-24T22:15:40Z")
thanks to all of you. i have been able to remove the hyperlinks one at a time. however i do not follow how to how to turn off the hyperlink feature in auto correct. i believe i have excel 2000. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/10 "2003-03-25T01:41:04Z")
I swear, it actually took me an hour to compose that message between doing work as well. I should have checked for other replies before posting. **biker** , if you have 2000, then you can’t turn it off through AutoCorrect. That was only made available as of 2002. ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/11 "2003-03-25T13:08:41Z")
> [@](#): > > I swear, it actually took me an hour to compose that message between doing work as well. I should have checked for other replies before posting. and I should have thought longer before posting…so i didnt 'have to post 4 messages! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-and-email-addresses-help/163767/12 "2003-03-25T13:09:47Z")
> [@](#): > > thanks to all of you. i have been able to remove the hyperlinks one at a time. you should really give the macro suggestion a go…if you’re concerned, make sure you have a backup copy of your document before you play with it… i can’t emphasise enough how macros can make simple repetitive tasks like that so much less of a pain