How to convert selected text into hyperlinks in Google spreadsheets?

Posted Date: 17-Jun-2011	Category: Internet & Browsers	Rating:
Author: Tony John	Member Level: Diamond	Points: 50

In this article, I will explain how to convert selected text in Google spreadsheets to clickable hyperlinks. You may use the function =HYPERLINK to create hyperlinks in Google spreadsheets.

Google spreadsheets is part of the Google Docs family of tools and is the equivalent of Microsoft Excel. You can create spreadsheets in the cloud and access or edit from any computer or supported device connected to the web. The Google spreadsheets is a very powerful program which allow you to do lot of calculations, store tabular data, embed powerful formulas to automatically calculate certain values with respect to other data in the spreadsheet.
One of the cool things in Google spreadsheets is, if you type any urls (text that start with http://), it will be automatically converted to a clickable hyperlink.

For example, if you type the following text in Google spreadsheets:
http://www.MyWindowsClub.com

it will be automatically converted to a clickable link like this:

http://www.MyWindowsClub.com

This is a very handy feature. You do not need to type any complex html to create hyperlinks in Google spreadsheets.

How to make some text clickable link in Google spreadsheets?

The above approach would make any urls a clickable link. But there may be occasions where you want to convert certain pieces of text to a clickable link without showing the link itself. For example, you may want to show something like this:

To learn more about how to use Google Spreadsheets, visit this website.

In the above text, the words "this website" is highlighted and is made to a clickable link that points to http://www.mywindowsclub.com.

In order to make some specific text in a cell to a hyperlink, you can use a formulae in Google Spreadsheets, as shown below:

=hyperlink("http://www.mywindowsclub.com", "Visit this site")

By using the formulae as shown above, you can make the text in any cell to a hyperlink pointing to the url you want.

One of the shortcomings in current version of Google spreadsheets is, you cannot convert partial text in a cell to hyperlink using the function mentioned above. In order to use the formula or function, you must use it for the entire cell. So, you cannot make few words within a bigger piece of text to hyperlink using the approach mentioned above.

The following example will not work in Google spreadsheets:

To learn more about how to use Google Spreadsheets, visit
 =hyperlink("http://www.mywindowsclub.com", "this website").

If you type the above text in a Google spreadsheets cell, the formula will be simply displayed as text instead of enabling the hyperlink.

I wish Google will add a menu item or some other option to enable hyperlink for selected text in a cell in Google spreadsheets.

Conclusion on using clickable hyperlinks in Google spreadsheets

I have been using Google Docs and Google spreadsheets for few years now, but converting selected to text to hyperlinks is a new piece of information to me. It is a very useful feature and I have already started using it a lot.

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