eWorld: Why Can't Open Office Delete a Hyperlink?

Jun

Why Can't Open Office Delete a Hyperlink?

Published: Monday, June 13, 2005, at 10:15AM

My girlfriend has been using Open Office for the past while, and every now and then these problems arise that really get me fed up with OO as a piece of usable software. For instance, the issue today is that she had copied and pasted a quote from the Internet into her paper, and OO had automatically made that text a link without giving her the choice. Since she didn't realize what was going on, that link style got carried through to the rest of the paper, and before she knew what was up she had a paper that was basically a big hyperlink.

Automatically making something a link is a UI decision that I absolutely hate, but whatever, that should be a silly little problem to fix, right?

No. It would seem to me that OO's word processor has no function to remove a hyperlink. I tried just deleting the URL (which it made me do on a per-paragraph basis, or it wouldn't apply), but no luck. Now the link just pointed to the document itself. I even downloaded the help package so I could look in the documentation, and while I see plenty of documentation for making a hyperlink, I can find none for deleting one.

I finally turned to AbiWord, which puts a "Delete Hyperlink" option into the context menu for the right mouse button (when appropriate). I think the paper is now ok, but my disgust for OO isn't.

Comments

Allann Jones writes:

http://www.laliluna.de/remove-openoffice-hyperlink.html

OpenOffice automatically detects Links in copied text or if you just input http://www.laliluna.de

Deleting or removing of this links is not very obvious. Here are two solutions to this.

Click with the right mouse button, choose Character from the context menu. Select the tab Hyperlink and delete the URL.

Select the hyperlink text and open the menu Format then choose Default. All formats including the hyperlink are deleted.

# on Sep.08.2005 AT 09:17 AM

e; writes:

I hadn't tried the second one... I remember that the first just gave me links with an empty href. OO usability is pathetic from a user experience standpoint. -e;

# on Sep.08.2005 AT 11:11 PM

Moff writes:

Using OOo 1.1.4, I could not get point 1 to work. Point 2 does work, except I right-clicked the selected text and clicked 'Default' at the top of the menu--the hyperlink vanished.

# on Sep.12.2005 AT 08:49 PM

teh OOownerer writes:

Oh come on, do not blame yourself! Just use Format -> Character, select the Hyperlink Tab and delete the href. Instead of jawling around, you should really care about your gf, makes just more fun dude! - nOOob ;)

# on Dec.05.2005 AT 01:19 AM

SnowCrash writes:

I totally agree with you. This is a UI nightmare. But happy to find at least a solution how to delete a hyperlink here.

# on Jan.23.2006 AT 02:52 AM

Jimbo writes:

I just ran into this issue using OO Calc. I couldn't intuitively figure it out, but this posting helped. I right clicked on the cell and selected "default" from the context menu and the hyperlink disappeared.

I don't have an issue with being unable to choose something obvious like "edit hyperling"--what I dislike is that the help files contain nothing regarding the removal of a hyperlink.

# on Feb.13.2006 AT 10:29 AM

pluggo writes:

I just ran into this one in OO Calc (2.0, win32). I didn't think either suggestion above was working (I know the first one doesn't still) until I realized that you have to click the cell, but not its contents (even if they're highlighted!). Worse yet, I couldn't find any options for preventing the interpretation of text as a hyperlink (this particular case involved a random password that was pasted into a cell that happened to have a @ in the middle). Come on, guys... let's use a little smarter regexp on these things if you're going to auto-link things!

Whoever is responsible for this aspect of the UI should be flogged. I'm seriously considering patching the OO source just so I can have a version without this "functionality." At least that's an option with FOSS...

# on Feb.24.2006 AT 01:01 PM

pluggo writes:

I found out how to disable this annoying "feature". My mistake was thinking that, since something that can be turned off is optional, it would be in the main options (Tools menu, Options). Oh, no! Tools menu, AutoCorrect, Options tab. This definitely seems misplaced. Anyway, for anyone who might otherwise spend as long as I did fighting with the machine, I thought I'd post this.

I would have logged this in the OO wiki, but it requires you to create an account before posting. Isn't the point of a wiki to catch those fleeting thoughts people have and aggregate them into a cohesive ball of ideas? It doesn't work nearly as well when you start making people jump through hoops before they can contribute. Oh well.

# on Feb.24.2006 AT 01:46 PM

JimFuqua writes:

It makes a difference whether you are viewing the odt document in "Print Layout" or "Web Layout" when trying to rid a page of links and images.

I had a page that would not let me select a link or image while in "Print Layout", but I could delete them while in "Web Layout". The URL did not show when using the Character-Hyperlink while in "Print Layout".

# on Apr.20.2006 AT 09:20 AM

Phil writes:

Thank God I've found a solution.

Not being able to remove a hyperlink from some text with a simple right click is just crazy. No wonder it's free.

# on Nov.21.2006 AT 06:12 AM

Solveig Haugland writes:

Hi,

You can turn off the URL formatting with a simple right-click. You don't have to select the linked text; just right-click on it and choose Default. True, "Default" doesn't scream "Unlink me" but it is quick. It works in Writer and in Calc.

Regarding where you turn off the automatic hyperlinking, it's a reasonably logical division. Tools > Options is where you set default values; Tools > AutoCorrect is where you set default behavior.

It's a good idea to turn off everything under the Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab unless you know you want it. Lots of stuff that will erase manual formatting, create all sorts of automatic bullets you don't want, etc. Leave the top option on, though, Use Replacement Table, since that's the one that makes sure that the stuff in the Replace tab is implemented. (Unless you don't want those items used.)

# on Nov.28.2006 AT 08:20 PM

Anamika writes:

Thanks a lot Solveig Haugland!!! u solved my problem!!!

# on Dec.01.2006 AT 11:15 PM

Richard writes:

None of the above works if you then convert the document to a PDF.

The links are still there whether you want them or not.

Pretty crap really :(

# on Jan.23.2007 AT 09:32 AM

Paul writes:

Lets not muddy the issue. I think its asinine that OO mutilates this functionality, but its pretty standard not to be able to edit a pdf!

# on Mar.05.2007 AT 12:26 PM

Maarten writes:

Nice way to remove urls, for example for an entire document, but then all other formatted text (bold, italics, etc.) is reformatted too...

# on Apr.27.2007 AT 04:03 AM

Peter Sandersen writes:

Came here googling for a solution as well.. Just thought I'd point out you can edit the "internet link" in the "character styles" part of the "styles and formating" window. You can then turn off the underline and change the colour to black.

But of a hack, but it works :)

# on May.01.2007 AT 01:52 AM

Chris writes:

Hehe, your story is quite funny :-)

OO has quite all the commands but they are hidden sometimes..

How to remove the hyperlink: http://www.laliluna.de/remove-openoffice-hyperlink.html

cheers,

Chris

# on May.12.2007 AT 05:06 PM

Bobbi writes:

I can't justify bashing a free/open-source software that has many more formatting features than MS Word. I found the linking issue a relatively small problem that took about 20 seconds to figure out. Microsoft Word actually has more broken features and less formatting options than OO. But to each his own I guess.

# on Jun.05.2007 AT 10:42 PM

vishal writes:

try the new star office it has all the open office and has clip arts best of all you dont have to pay any thing as Google give it free with Google pak dont take my word for it chek out the link and sea for you self http://www.freeoffice2008.com/

# on Aug.21.2007 AT 08:36 AM

Willard Van Dyne writes:

"It's a good idea to turn off everything under the Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab unless you know you want it."

This was exactly what I was looking for. I was going nuts trying to prevent OO from making links out URLs I was typing in. Thank you, Solveig Haugland. :-)

# on Aug.29.2007 AT 09:10 PM

Kamakiri writes:

Thanks for this blog post! It is #4 in a google search now for the following search: how to find a broken link in "open office". The first few have excel solutions which were useless.

My problem is that I couldn't even find the stupid link. I had a link to some thing that had changed on the original page, and kept getting the message that there was a broken link. It would be soooo much nicer if OO could point out where the problem is instead of just the problem.

# on Oct.12.2007 AT 10:04 PM

David writes:

Thanks for the post. Came across this page by typing "remove hyperlink office calc" into google and this came top! I had the same problem and when something like this happens you start questioning yourself rather than the program!

It's a ridiculous issue, step 1 didn't work as someone previously mentioned but step 2 did.

# on Oct.27.2007 AT 01:52 AM

Don writes:

Wow. Just want to thank you guys. I don't like to get emotional about a program but I felt "hijacked" when OO turned half of a simple letter into a hyperlink. I felt it was really user hostile. I would be so much happier to have that feature disabled totally and then to be able to select those hyperlinks that I really want to link to something. Also, there are many contexts now in which someone could be making reference to a defunct web page for other reasons than wanting people to go there. As time goes on, more and more references will be defunct. Anyway, the select and default gets the job done for me!!

# on Nov.21.2007 AT 05:44 AM

WBP writes:

Also came across this. I didn't find a feasible solution.

However, I came up with a work around... :

These annoying generations of word processing that auto fix everything, don't apply the changes until it's triggered that your done. When you type your next space, OpenOffice applies the link crap.

So, type your url, then, instead of spacing at the end, click somewhere else in the document, or paste a space if it's not the end of your sentence. This will override it. I know, it's a work around and it shouldn't be that way.

Also, the hyperlink is counted as a history state, so if you do it on accident (or just want to do it this way), just hit a quick CTR-Z after you've made you space, and the hyperlink formatting will disappear, and you're on your way.

This annoyance is welcomed compared to ones I have with Word.

# on Nov.28.2007 AT 10:56 PM

CaioAlonso writes:

Right click > Default Formatting.

Simple.

# on Mar.02.2008 AT 01:31 PM

suman writes:

Hi Why Can't Open Office Delete a Hyperlink?

go -> Menu Bar ->Format ->Default Formatin

or Press Ctrl+Shift+Space

# on Apr.15.2008 AT 03:43 AM

Simon writes: