If you’re like most people, you probably use the Ctrl key to navigate hyperlinks in your word document. But there’s a better way to do this - using the arrow keys. To navigate hyperlinks in your word document, use the following steps:
- Open the document you want to hyperlink to.
- Press the left arrow key (or right arrow key on a keyboard with a left-to-right layout) to move one link up or down.
- Press the up arrow key (or down arrow key on a keyboard with a left-to-right layout) to move two links up or down.
- Press the left and right arrows keys together (or press Alt+left and Alt+right arrows on a keyboard with an alt+left/alt+right layout) to move all links in your document up or down one level at a time.
By default, live hyperlinks in Word are opened in the default browser by pressing and holding the “Ctrl” button and clicking the link. If you would rather just single click to follow a hyperlink, you can easily disable the “Ctrl+Click” using a setting.
To access this setting, click the “File” tab.
On the backstage screen, click “Options” in the list of items on the left.
On the “Word Options” dialog box, click “Advanced” in the list of items on the left.
In the “Editing options” section, select the “Use CTRL + Click to follow hyperlink” check box so there is NO check mark in the box.
Click “OK” to accept the change and close the “Word Options” dialog box.
Now, when you move your mouse over a hyperlink, the cursor immediately changes to a hand and you can click once to follow the link.
NOTE: Turning off this option prevents you from being able to simply click on hyperlink text to put the cursor there, as clicking will open the link in the default browser. You must use the arrow keys to move the cursor into a hyperlink.
If you have a web address with spaces in it, here’s an easy way to have Word automatically create a live hyperlink as you type. You can also disable the ability to create hyperlinks automatically as you type them, or remove existing hyperlinks from your document.
