make XL stop interpreting email addresses as highlighted links?

J

John Smith

In several worksheets I store email addresses but XL insists on making
them links. So, if I ever select the cell, it tries to open Outlook
(which I won't let on my machine), etc. It takes me 30 seconds to get
control back. I've looked everywhere in Options but I haven't found
anything to stop this. My workaround is to type the email address in an
unused cell, then copy it and Paste Special into the target cell with
"values only". What a pain.

Can you gurus please help? By the way, I did look hard and long for
this in earlier posts -- I can't be the only one hassled by this.

Thanks much.
 
R

Ragdyer

You didn't mention your version, but I'm on a XL97 machine today, so I can't
exactly advise on how some of the newer versions disable this "feature",
which they can do.
An old trick for these older versions was to click into an adjoining cell to
the link, and then use the arrow keys to enter the linked cell, therefore
by-passing the "automatic" activation.
 
J

John Smith

I'v using XL2K. I wish I understood what you're saying. When I try to do
what I think you're saying, I get caught in the trap (ie, mail things
start trying to open, etc.). Bill Gates really screwed this one up
well. Thanks for trying to help.
 
J

John James

Hi John,

This works in my Excel 2002, I assume it will work for you:

Select Tools-AutoCorrect Options Click on the "AutoFormat as you Type
tab and uncheck the hyperlinks checkbox.

Any new addresses you type will not be hyperlinked.

Copy one of the newly entered non-hyperlink addresses an
Paste-Special-Formats over your old unwanted hyperlinks to remove th
links
 
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