Add Hyperlinks and Bookmarks in Excel

By Ted French, About.com Guide

Hyperlink and Bookmark Overview

Related tutorial: Insert a Hyperlink in Excel Using Shortcut Keys

A hyperlink, the usually blue text in a web page that can be clicked on to jump to a different document, can also be used in Excel to provide quick and easy access to separate Excel workbooks.

A bookmark, like a hyperlink, can be used to create a link to a specific area in the current worksheet or to a different worksheet within the same Excel file.

Both are intended to make it easier for users to navigate between areas of related data.

This tutorial includes step by step examples for adding both hyperlinks and bookmarks. The bookmark example is located on page two of the tutorial.

Both hyperlinks and bookmarks are created using the hyperlink dialog box that is located on the Insert tab of the ribbon.

Hyperlink Example

For help with this example click on the image above

The following tutorial steps add hyperlinks to a number of Excel files. These steps include saving three blank Excel files and then linking to them from a separate Excel workbook.

Creating the files

1. Open Excel and save three Excel files with the following names into the My Documents folder:

       January Sales
       February Sales
       March Sales
   

2. Open a fourth blank Excel document that will contain the links to the above three files



Entering the data

3. Enter the following data into cells D1 to D4 of the worksheet. The three month names will act as the anchor text for the hyperlinks.

       First Quarter Sales
       January
       February
       March 
   

Creating the hyperlinks

4. Click on cell D2 (January) in the fourth worksheet to make it the active cell


5. Click on the Insert tab of the ribbon


6. Click on the Hyperlink icon to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog box


7. Under the Link to: column on the left hand side of the dialog box click on Existing File or Web Page


8. In the Look in: line in the center of the dialog box switch to the My Documents folder if necessary.


9. Scroll if necessary to find the January.xlsx file and click once to highlight it


10. Click OK to insert the hyperlink in cell D2 and close the dialog box


11. To add hyperlinks for February and March click on the correct cell containing the anchor text (cells D3 or D4) and repeat steps 5 to 10 above


12. Click on the hyperlinks to test them

Microsoft Excel Security Notice

Since we did not save the fourth file before testing the links Excel will most likely give you a security notice explaining that the file you are trying to open may be unsafe.

Excel has several of these built in security features to help keep your computer safe from threats such as viruses that can be located in web pages and in macros contained in Excel files.

When creating hyperlinks it is important to consider such security risks - especially when linking to files located on the Internet or on a different computer.

To finish testing the links created in this tutorial click Yes to continue. Each should open the file associated with the linked name.

Saving the file containing the hyperlinks will remove the security notice when the links are used.

• Hyperlink and Bookmark Overview
• Creating Bookmarks to Different Worksheets