How to Remove Links from Word Documents

Remove your hyperlinks in Word documents using the app’s built-in features and options. Here’s how you can remove hyperlinks from your text.

Adding hyperlinks is an ideal way to create a professional document, especially if you’re creating citations in a bibliography, linking online resources, or even linking to external files.

However, if the links become broken, the resources outdated, or if a file is moved, you’ll want to remove those links to avoid misdirecting your readers.

The good news is that it’s easy to do.

We'll show you how to delete hyperlinks while keeping your text intact and even how to keep editing your Word text after you do so. We’ll cover how to:

• Remove Hyperlinks in Word using the context menu
• Remove all hyperlinks in Word using your keyboard
• Remove hyperlinks from copied text
• Remove auto-formatted hyperlinks in Word
• Edit your DOCX files online

Let's get started!

How to remove hyperlinks in Word

Cleaning up the hyperlinks in your Word document is simpler than you think. And depending on how you work, you have a few options to make the process easier.

How to remove hyperlinks in Word using the context menu

Removing individual hyperlinks only takes two clicks when you use MS Word’s context menu. Follow these steps:

1. In your Word document, right click on the hyperlink you wish to remove.

2. In the context menu that appears, click on Remove Link. The hyperlink will then be removed, turning the anchor text into normal static text.

How to remove all hyperlinks in Word using your keyboard

Wondering how to remove multiple hyperlinks in Word? You can save time on individually removing them one by one by using your keyboard to use Word’s remove hyperlink shortcut.

1. In your Word document, press CTRL + A or use your mouse to select the content that contains multiple hyperlinks.

2. Then press CTRL + SHIFT + F9. All the hyperlinks will then be removed.

How to remove hyperlinks from copied text

When creating content, you may be copying and pasting text into your document that still retains a hyperlink. Removing the hyperlinks and keeping your copied text is easy.

Once you’ve copied the text containing the link, go into your Word document, and right click where you want to insert it.

Then select the Paste as Plain Text option from the context menu or press CTRL + SHIFT + V.

Expert Tip: Change the settings in MS Word so you can automatically turn copy and pasted linked text into plain text without any hyperlinks.

1. Open your document in MS Word.

2. Go to File > Options > Advanced.

3. In the “Cut, copy, and paste” section, click on the drop-down menu beside the Pasting from other programs option.

4. Select Keep Text Only and click on OK.

You’ll also have other pasting options you can set for copying and pasting text between and within MS Word documents, letting you construct your document without the clutter of unwanted hyperlinks

How to remove auto-formatted hyperlinks in MS Word

If you're manually typing URLs in Word as you go, you can stop MS Word from automatically turning them into active links altogether.

This can save time on having to remove hyperlink text afterwards. Here's how:

1. Open your document in MS Word.

2. Go to File > Options > Proofing.

3. Click on the AutoCorrect Options... button.

4. In the AutoCorrect dialog, go to the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab.

5. In the “Replace as you type” section of the tab, uncheck the Internet and network paths with hyperlinks check box.

6. Click on OK. And then click on the OK button in the main Word Options dialog.

Once this option is set, any URL you type out will result in a plain unclickable website address.

How to edit your DOCX files online

On top of removing hyperlinks, you can also perform other DOCX edits on the fly afterwards. You can use Xodo’s DOCX online editor for quick edits wherever and whenever you need.

1. Go to Xodo’s DOCX Editor tool.

2. Upload your DOCX Word document.

3. Use any of the DOCX editing features available. You can perform common text edits, including formatting and font changes to structuring content with heading styles and text alignment options.

Check out our guide on editing your DOCX files online for full details on the editing features you can use.

4. Once you’re done editing your document, click on Download.

Update your DOCX files anywhere with Xodo and MS Word

With the above methods to remove hyperlink in Word, you can easily create distraction-free documents in MS Word.

From simply using the context menu to making a few tweaks in your settings, you can strip away unnecessary links with a few clicks.

And by using Xodo to polish off the rest of your document from anywhere, you can instantly take your document productivity to the next level.

Try Xodo today and get the full online experience!