HYPERLINK Function

The HYPERLINK function creates a hyperlink to a given destination with a "friendly name", which is simply the anchor text. You can use HYPERLINK to construct a clickable hyperlink with a formula. The HYPERLINK function can build links to other cells in a workbook, other sheets, named ranges, other workbooks, pages on the internet, or files on network servers. You can also use HYPERLINK to create email links.

The HYPERLINK function takes two arguments: link_location and friendly_name. Link_location is the destination or path the link should follow, entered as text. Friendly_name is the text that will be displayed with the link.

When a user clicks a cell that contains the HYPERLINK function, Excel will open the file or page specified by link_location. Link_location can be a cell reference or named range, a path to a file stored on a local drive, a path a file on a server using Universal Naming Convention (UNC), or an internet path in Uniform Resource Locator (URL) format.

Example #1 - link to cell

To link to another cell in the same worksheet, prefix the cell with "#":

=HYPERLINK("#Z100","link to Z100") // cell in same sheet

Example #2 - link to sheet

To link to another sheet in the same workbook, use "#" with the Sheet name like this

=HYPERLINK("#Sheet2!A1","Sheet2") // sheet2 in same workbook

If the sheet name contains a space, you'll get an invalid reference error with the formula above. In that case, you'll need to enclose the sheet name in single quotes (') like this:

=HYPERLINK("#'Sheet 2'!A1","Sheet 2") // sheet name with space

Example #3 - external link

To link to https://exceljet.net/ with the text "exceljet":

=HYPERLINK("https://exceljet.net/","exceljet")

Example #4 - email link

To link to a valid email address in A1, you can concatenate "mailto:" like this:

=HYPERLINK("mailto:"&A1,"email") // link to email address in A1

With two email addresses in A1 and A2, you can create a link like this:

=HYPERLINK("mailto:"&A1&","&B1,"email") // two emails

This formula example explains how to construct a more complete mailto email link with cc, subject, body, etc.

Notes

• Link_location should be supplied as a text string in quotation marks or a cell reference that contains the link path as text.
• If friendly_name is not supplied, the HYPERLINK will display link_location as the friendly_name.
• To select a cell that contains HYPERLINK without following the link, use arrow keys or right-click the cell.