Turning off Automatic Hyperlinks

If you’re sending your document electronically, hyperlinks can be a great tool, allowing users to open a web page or network path without having to cut and paste the address into their internet browser or explorer window. However, if you’re distributing your document in printed form rather than electronically, hyperlinks serve no good purpose and can throw the formatting of your document off.

If you’re tired of removing the hyperlinks from your documents manually by right-clicking on them and selecting remove hyperlink, there is another solution: You can stop Word from automatically inserting them in your documents.

1. From the Tools menu, select AutoCorrect Options
2. Click on the AutoFormat As You Type Tab
3. Deselect Internet and network paths with hyperlinks
4. Click OK

Next time you insert web addresses, network paths, and email addresses in your document, they will appear as plain text and will not function as hyperlinks. You can easily change this option in the future, but it will not automatically change typed text back to hyperlinks.