Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: References to Hyperlinks aren't Hyperlinks.
If you have a hyperlink in a cell (such as cell A1) and then you use a formula in another cell that references that hyperlink, the result of that formula is not a hyperlink. For instance, suppose cell B1 contains this simple formula:
=A1
The result of that formula will not be a hyperlink, even if cell A1 contains a hyperlink. The reason is that the formula extracts the value of the referenced cell, which is the text displayed in A1. If what is displayed in cell A1 is a URL, then you could modify your formula just a bit to result in a hyperlink:
=HYPERLINK(A1)
If cell A1 does not contain a URL, or if it is a hyperlink where the displayed text is different than the underlying URL, then the HYPERLINK function won't work as expected.
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2026-04-26 11:20:46
J. Woolley
Re. this formula in cell B1
=HYPERLINK(A1)
The Tip says, "If cell A1 does not contain a URL, or if it is a hyperlink where the displayed text is different than the underlying URL, then the HYPERLINK function won't work as expected."
Here's an alternate formula for cell B1:
=HYPERLINK("#A1", A1)
Now you can click cell B1 to activate cell A1, then you can cliick cell A1 to activate its hyperlink.
If cell A1 is on Sheet1 and B1 is on a different sheet, use this formula:
=HYPERLINK("#'Sheet1'!A1", 'Sheet1'!A1)
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
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