Find Out How To Create That Missing Link With Excel

Tue 23rd November 2010

When working on a database containing multiple sets of information, it is useful to have active hyperlinks. Here we take a look at how Microsoft Excel 2010 allows you to link to e-mail address, Web sites and even separate files on your desktop.

As a new business manager it's important for Louise to keep track of leads, contact details, trends, and other client data. She can do this using a specialist CRM software package. But it's important that she also sends on this information to her manager, Carol, as a document showing a precise synopsis of her sales activity. Her CRM software can produce reports with sector-specific or even geographic breakdowns. However, Louise can also export her data into an Excel spreadsheet so that only the information Carol needs to see is displayed. This is ideal when Louise and Carol want to consider targets for e-mail campaigns which are sector-specific - or even just creating a seasonal mail out such as the omnipresent Christmas card list.

By importing her data into Excel, Louise has a precise snapshot of who she is targeting in a manageable, concise and sector-specific spreadsheet. Louise has found that occasionally e-mail addresses can have that annoying habit of hyperlinking to her Outlook program; but sometimes she also needs to use hyperlinks so that she can view client websites with Carol as they are considering their pitch list.

A hyperlink is a link from a document that opens another page or file when you click on the link. The destination can be a Web page, but it can also be a picture, or an e-mail address, or a program. The hyperlink itself can be text or a picture. For example, a hyperlink to a page shows the page in the Web browser, and a hyperlink to an AVI multimedia file for sound and videos opens the file in a media player. When you click on a hyperlink, then, the destination is shown in your Web browser, or the file is opened, or will run depending on the type of destination.

By default, hyperlinks appear as coloured, underlined text. When you point to it, the mouse pointer turns into a hand with a pointing finger and a box with the link's URL or ScreenTip appears. Although you can create a link to any document on your hard disk or accessible over a local area network on the Internet, clicking the link will only open the document if you have a program capable of opening it - for example, the program that created it.

If, like Louise, you have a lot of different worksheets and want a quick way to jump between them, you can use hyperlinks. With Microsoft Excel 2010 there is a host of other commands you can use with hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are convenient ways to allow the user of a workbook to instantly access another place in the workbook, another workbook, or a file associated with another application.

A hyperlink can be inserted in a cell or a shape in Excel. Select the cell or shape and select Hyperlink from the Insert menu, or right click on the cell or shape and select Hyperlink from the pop up menu. You can enter a cell reference in the current workbook, browse to another workbook, a different file, or a web page, and even enter an e-mail address and subject line. You can also edit the hyperlink text for a hyperlink in a cell.

Even if you are creating your own bespoke target list for the first time, learning how to use the hyperlink commands in Excel 2007 is easy. You can create an external reference link to a worksheet, data on the Web, or select a hyperlink without activating the link, and even set the base address for the hyperlinks in a workbook.

If, like Louise, you are constantly trying not to click on a hyperlink for fear of going off on a journey into an unknown e-mail domain, you can select a cell that has a hyperlink in it without going to the hyperlink destination. Simply click the cell and hold the mouse button until the pointer becomes a cross, and then release the mouse button.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on microsoft excel courses london, please visit https://www.stl-training.co.uk

Original article appears here:
https://www.stl-training.co.uk/article-1280-find-out-how-create-that-missing-link-with-excel.html