merged field to hyperlink

[Laetitia]

I am trying to merge a web address to a word document and show it as an
hyperlink. I have tried to do {HYPERLINK {MERGEFIELD WebAddress}} and after
the merge it comes up as {HYPERLINK http://www.bbc.co.uk/} but it does not
work. I have also tried to double quotes {HYPERLINK "{MERGEFIELD
WebAddress}" } but it still did not take me to the website. Any help would
be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Laetitia

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Links are not generally clickable while the field code is displayed, I
think, so you may just need to toggle fields. But if you're using Word 2002
or 2003, you must also press Ctrl while clicking (unless you disable this
option on the Edit tab of Tools | Options).

 

[Laetitia]

I can toggle the field but I get WebAddress underlined, which is the name of
the merged field and not the real address like http://www.bbc.co.uk/ for
example) and when I click the link nothing happens.
Laetitia

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Did you use a Mail Merge toolbar button to insert the merge field? If not,
did you insert the field braces using Ctrl+F9?

 

[Laetitia]

I used field braces using Ctrl+F9.
Laetitia

Did you use a Mail Merge toolbar button to insert the merge field? If not,
did you insert the field braces using Ctrl+F9?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In that case, I don't know why this isn't working. Did you F9 to update the
field?

 

[Laetitia]

I apologise. I was not using F9 to do the update. Thank you for your help.
Laetitia

 

[SweetBloodhound]

Help! I am having the same problem myself, only I can't get it to work, even
with using F9 (which I didn't know about till reading this post).

I have a Word Email merge document that I'm trying to disguise the URL link
which is a field from Excel. That is, I am merging data from Excel into
Word, into an Email format merge document, and I have a specific URL for each
record. The URL is in Excel, and I'd like to have it appear in the Email as
a disguised active link.

Is this possible? Everytime I try doing the {HYPERLINK "{MERGEFIELD
"URL"}"}, the Hyperlink part loses it's "greyness" (field code shading) and
doesn't work.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Trying The Impossible?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The field you cite will insert a hyperlink but not a "disguised" one, which
would require an extra mergefield to insert the display text. To see what
I'm talking about, examine an existing hyperlink that displays text other
than the actual URL (press Alt+F9 to see the field code). See also
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/HyperlinkProbs.htm

Plain-text emails don't permit hyperlinks with different display text; this
may be possible in HTML, but I'm not sure how well it survives mail merging.

 

[SweetBloodhound]

I think I understand what you're saying, but I don't see the extra
mergefield. Here's what I did after reading your reply: I opened up Word
2003, typed the text "Google Site", selected the text, clicked the Insert
Hyperlink button, and put in "www.google.com" in the web address and clicked
OK. Back in the document, I only see { HYPERLINK "http://www.google.com/" }.
When I do Alt+F9, I see the correct text of "Google Site", but looking at
the field code view I don't see that text, I only see the hyperlink so I
don't know how to "code" the visible text.

I'll review the website you suggested, but I'm just wondering if I'm asking
too much. Here's my situation: I have a set of simple data (customer name,
team name and project name) and probably about 10-20 records a week. Each
week I need to send out a custom URL to each of the 10-20 records. The URL
simply needs the data "appended" to the end of it. I use Excel to create the
unique URL, and then I want to mail merge to make it easy by already having
the personalized email text and sending out the email with the URL within.
Because the URL could get long and bulky, I'd like to disguise it and make it
shorter. Plain text email format shouldn't be a problem because I'm using
our company default of HTML email format (Outlook) and most people will
receive it that way as well.

Perhaps I just need to find another process, or resort to having my customer
manually disguise the URL each time they send out the email.

Thanks!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The hyperlink I was referencing is shown in Figure 5. It has an \o switch
that is followed by the display text in quotes. So if you added

\o "{ MERGEFIELD DisplayText }"

to your hyperlink, there's a better chance that it would work.

 

[JLipsky]

Suzanne,
The switch \o is used for the tip - I still haven't found a means in Word
2003 SP2 mail merge to have a disguised Hyperlink. Surely there must be a
way! Help!

Thanks, Joy-Ellen

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You may be able to do this in HTML mail but not in plain text.