In complex workbooks, you often need to insert a link to a cell on another sheet, make links to all sheets of a workbook, or turn a column of URLs into clickable links. Here are 10 ways (and a bonus one) to create a hyperlink in Excel, one or many at once.
1. From the context menu
One of the fastest and clearest ways is the context menu. It works with cells and with graphic objects:
- right-click a cell, picture, shape or another object;
- choose Link (Hyperlink in older versions);
- in the Insert Hyperlink dialog, choose the link type: Existing File or Web Page, Place in This Document, Create New Document or E-mail Address;
- enter the address, the text to display and, if you like, a ScreenTip, and click OK.
The ScreenTip appears when you hover over the object with the link:
You can attach a hyperlink to many kinds of objects: regular cells, pictures, shapes and SmartArt graphics, including separate elements inside them. For example, to make a company logo open your website on click: insert the picture, right-click it, choose Link and paste the website address. Now the picture works as an interactive link.
2. With a keyboard shortcut
You can open the same dialog without the context menu: press Ctrl+K. If you’re used to keyboard shortcuts, this is faster. The rest of the steps are the same: the Insert Hyperlink dialog opens.
3. The HYPERLINK function
The HYPERLINK function creates dynamic links to websites, files and sheets, and can even launch applications. It’s the most flexible way, and it lets you make a whole column of addresses clickable at once:
=HYPERLINK(A2,"Open")
Its advantages:
- works with any type of address: websites, mailto:, tg://, files, folders;
- builds the link from values in other cells, so you can generate links by a template, substituting query parameters or file names;
- works inside arrays, lists and filters;
- looks like regular text with an active link.
To link to a cell on another sheet, put “#” before the address:
=HYPERLINK("#Sheet2!A1","Go to Sheet2")
If the sheet name contains spaces, wrap it in apostrophes: “#’Sales 2026′!A1”. This is the most common question about links inside a workbook.
4. Paste as Hyperlink
The Paste as Hyperlink command quickly inserts a link to a cell on another sheet, a range, a sheet or another Excel file. Unlike the HYPERLINK formula, it takes two clicks, but only after you add the command to the ribbon or the Quick Access Toolbar.
It’s especially useful for cross-references inside a sheet made of many reports or complex tables, where cell addresses are not known in advance and are inconvenient to type.
How to enable the command
- Go to File → Options → Customize Ribbon or Quick Access Toolbar.
- In Choose commands from, select Commands Not in the Ribbon and find Paste as Hyperlink.
- Add it to the tab or toolbar you want.
How to use it
- Copy any cell or range (Ctrl+C).
- Select the cell where you want the link.
- Click Paste as Hyperlink on the toolbar.
You get an active link to the copied cell, range or sheet. If you copied a range from another workbook, Excel inserts a link to that external file. If the copied cell was empty, the link text is its address; otherwise it’s its value.
5. Links to email, Telegram and WhatsApp
Excel can create links that open an app with the data already filled in. They are handy for contacting clients and colleagues, sending reports quickly, checklists and dashboards.
Email (mailto:)
With the mailto: prefix, a click opens the email client with the recipient, subject and body already filled in:
mailto:support@example.com?subject=Question&body=Hello!%0AI%20have%20a%20question:
- subject= sets the subject;
- body= sets the text;
- spaces are encoded as %20 and line breaks as %0A.
You can also use the standard E-mail Address option in the Insert Hyperlink dialog. It’s not obvious, but you can add the body right in the Subject box after &body=. A click on the link opens your default email client with a new message.
Telegram (tg://resolve)
Links like tg://resolve?domain=username open a Telegram profile in the app:
tg://resolve?domain=username
You can attach such links to text, shapes and pictures. For example, Insert → Icons has an icon that looks like a chat bubble.
The wa.me format opens a WhatsApp chat with a pre-filled message, both in the desktop app and in the browser:
https://wa.me/15551234567?text=Thanks%20for%20the%20guide!
The phone number must be in international format, without the plus sign, spaces or dashes.
6. Links on objects from the Insert tab
The Insert tab adds shapes, pictures, SmartArt and other objects, and you can attach a hyperlink to most of them: right-click the object and choose Link.
- Shapes work as navigation buttons between sheets and cells. Arrows are ideal for this, but any shape will do.
- Pictures and icons are good for logos and buttons.
- Charts can also have links, which few people know: select the chart and press Ctrl+K.
- Each element inside a SmartArt graphic can have its own link. That way you build clickable diagrams, structures, roadmaps and navigation menus.
7. Links on parts of an ungrouped picture
If you ungroup a schematic picture (an SVG icon converted to shapes, for example), each part can get its own link. This creates interactive visual navigation through complex objects: handy for practical guides and teaching. It also combines presentation with large tables that would be hard to handle in PowerPoint.
8. Links to named ranges and tables
Links to named ranges have a nice feature: a click not only jumps to the range, but selects it entirely. In the Insert Hyperlink dialog, choose Place in This Document and pick the name under Defined Names. With a formula, it’s =HYPERLINK(“#SalesData”,”Sales”).
9. Links to all files in a folder
If you need links to many files in a folder, such as pictures, documents or other workbooks, there is a simple way. In Windows 11, select all the files in File Explorer and press Ctrl+Shift+C (Copy as path). In Windows 10, hold Shift, right-click and choose Copy as path. Then paste the paths into an Excel sheet.
These are not links yet, only text paths to the files (in quotes, which you can remove with Find and Replace). But it’s easy to make them clickable: with the HYPERLINK function or the Build hyperlinks tool in my add-in, which creates regular links without formulas. See how to edit and build hyperlinks in bulk.
10. Links extracted from existing hyperlinks
Sometimes the links are already there, but you need their addresses: to check them, change them or reuse them elsewhere. Excel doesn’t let you copy the URL of a manually inserted link, but the !SEMTools procedure can extract the URLs from hyperlinks in all selected cells at once.
Bonus: links to all sheets of a workbook (table of contents)
Users of !SEMTools (Pro, Lite and even the free version) have a procedure that makes navigating workbooks with many sheets much easier. It creates a “Contents” sheet at the beginning of the workbook with links to all its sheets. It’s in the Find group of the add-in tab. More ways are in the article on how to create a table of contents in Excel.
Common mistakes
- The link to another sheet says “Reference isn’t valid”. The # is missing in HYPERLINK, or the sheet name with spaces is not in apostrophes.
- The link stopped working after the sheet was renamed. HYPERLINK stores the address as text and doesn’t update. Links inserted with Ctrl+K into a named range survive renaming.
- HYPERLINK returns #VALUE!. The address is longer than 255 characters.
Turn hundreds of addresses into clickable links, extract URLs from hyperlinks or build a table of contents in one click.
!SEMTools solves this and hundreds of other tasks right in Excel!
Summary
I hope you found what you were looking for on this page and were able to create the links you need. For one link, Ctrl+K is the fastest; for links built from data, use HYPERLINK; for navigation inside a workbook, Paste as Hyperlink or links to named ranges. And for hundreds of links at once, the !SEMTools procedures do it in a couple of clicks.