Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Hyperlinks to Internet in Excel 2011 don't work

M

margb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 24, 2013
2
0
Toronto, Ontario
Hi - I'm preparing an Excel spreadsheet that has a detailed travel itinerary, and want to include hyperlinks to web pages of interest. There's no problem copying and pasting the full web address (via Command-C and Command-V) into the Hyperlink dialog, and the web address turns blue, is underlined, and looks fine - but when you click on it (before or after saving the workbook) you get this error message:

"Unable to open http://thewebaddress. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server."

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be?

Thanks!
 
R

RedCroissant

Suspended
Aug 13, 2011
2,268
96
margb said:
Hi - I'm preparing an Excel spreadsheet that has a detailed travel itinerary, and want to include hyperlinks to web pages of interest. There's no problem copying and pasting the full web address (via Command-C and Command-V) into the Hyperlink dialog, and the web address turns blue, is underlined, and looks fine - but when you click on it (before or after saving the workbook) you get this error message:

"Unable to open http://thewebaddress. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server."

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I think the problem is that you copied and pasted as opposed to using the Excel method of "inserting a hyperlink." That's the only thing that worked when I ran into this problem on my wife's iMac. If that doesn't work, make sure that excel allows incoming/outgoing internet connections. If either of those methods doesn't work, then I have no idea what else to advise you to do.
 
M

margb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 24, 2013
2
0
Toronto, Ontario
Thank you

Thanks for the suggestions, RedCroissant. I got one web address to work, once. That's progress!

From what I can see, searching online, this is a continuing bug in Office software.

Very much appreciate your response.
 
R

RedCroissant

Suspended
Aug 13, 2011
2,268
96
margb said:
Thanks for the suggestions, RedCroissant. I got one web address to work, once. That's progress!

From what I can see, searching online, this is a continuing bug in Office software.

Very much appreciate your response.
Click to expand...

You're welcome, and for what it's worth, I highly recommend LibreOffice for productivity suite necessities over Office any day of the week. I use it on my G4 iBook and wouldn't even consider using MO at all. If you have time and the inclination, you should check it out. It's completely free of charge and works very well.
 
T

tzgle

macrumors newbie
Oct 14, 2015
1
1
The stupid workaround that I'm posting here in the hopes that it helps someone else is to use google's link obfuscation to your advantage:

Search google for your link.
Copy the google link to your desired page (this will start as "https://www.google.com/url?..." and contain a reference to your link) as the link in the HYPERLINK function.
This google link should now automatically redirect to your desired page.
 
  • Like
Reactions: byersbw
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom