MS Excel — How To Make Hyperlinks “Stick” When Converted to PDF?
It’s Not Easy, But Here is MY Workaround
Have you run into this problem? You include hyperlinks to external content in an Excel file, but as soon as you send it to PDF, the links are dead…
Painful to say the least!
Here’s how I solve it. If you know another approach, please let me know!
The Situation
- Excel workbook with live hyperlinks.
- PDF version with dead links.. UGH.
As you see, the key is to have the links “hyperlinked” with the actual URL displaying.
Here’s How I Did It In This File
The challenge in my workbook is that one link is Static and the second link is dynamic (it changes based on the content included in the report).
For the STATIC link, just copy and paste the URL into a separate location. Make sure that the URL is a live link (if this doesn’t happen automatically upon pasting, use the “Insert >> Link” process from the Home Ribbon to make certain it’s a live link).
For the DYNAMIC link, insert the formula and and use the “Insert >> Link” process from the Home Ribbon. As the underlying source link changes, the displayed URL changes and stays live.
That’s it!
The final step is DO NOT “Print” the report to PDF — depending on the specific approach you use, links will break! Always use the Adobe Add-In ribbon (if you have Adobe Licensed Software).
About Don
“It’s time for DIFFERENT”
Don is passionate about helping professionals and organizations keep up, develop and adapt to the changing business world that we operate in.
