Converting a Range of URLs to Hyperlinks

John has a workbook that has well over a thousand URLs in it, all in column A. These are not hyperlinks; they are straight text of individual URLs. John wants to convert the URLs to active hyperlinks, but doing the conversion individually is extremely tedious, especially for that many URLs.

One way to do the conversion is to use the HYPERLINK function. Put this formula in cell B1 and copy it down as many cells as necessary:

=IF(A1="","",HYPERLINK(IF(LEFT(A1,7)="http://","","http://")&A1))

The result is that column B will contain hyperlinks for everything in column A. The formula isn't terribly robust, as it only deals with the presence or lack of the text "http://", and you may need it to also deal with "https" addresses. It is possible to adjust the formula (i.e., making it more complex), but you may also want to consider using a macro to do the conversions.

To be effective, the macro would need to step through each cell in a selected range and, if the cell is not blank, convert the contents to a hyperlink. The following will do the trick:

Sub URL_List()
    Dim sTemp As String
    Dim sURL As String
    Dim cell As Range

    For Each cell In Selection
        If cell.Value <> "" Then
            sTemp = Left(cell.Value, 7)
            If sTemp = "http://" Or sTemp = "https:/" Then
                sURL = cell.Value
            Else
                sURL = "http://" & cell.Value
            End If
            ActiveSheet.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=cell, _
              Address:=sURL, TextToDisplay:=cell.Value
        End If
    Next cell
End Sub

The macro is not foolproof; it assumes that if a cell contains anything at all it is a valid URL. What it does is to check the cell contents and, if the contents aren't prefaced by the "http://" or "https:/" text, then a prefix of "http://" is added. The hyperlink is then created based on the cell contents.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (5825) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Converting a Range of URLs to Hyperlinks.