What are Hyperlinks ?
A Hyperlink is a reference to a document, a location or an action that the reader can directly follow by selecting the link.
Hyperlinks are used extensively on the Internet and are generally Words highlighted in Underlined Blue <– Like that.
The use of Hyperlinks in Excel has been extended to a number of areas and this includes:
- Opening Files (of any type)
- Opening Web Pages (Internet or Intranet)
- Jumping/Navigating to locations within an existing document
- Creating New Documents (Excel files only)
- Sending Emails
Microsoft has added the ability to place Hyperlinks,
- Directly on an Excel worksheet ,
- Connected to a number of worksheet objects, including shapes, charts and wordart
- Included as a worksheet formulas.
- Programmatically using VBA
These 4 methods above will be discussed here.
Inserting Hyperlinks
As described above there are 4 methods for inserting hyperlinks in an Excel Workbook.
Directly on an Excel worksheet
There are 3 ways to insert a Hyperlink directly into a cell, either:
Right click on the cell and select Hyperlink; or
Use the Insert, Hyperlinks Tab; or
Use a Keyboard Shortcut – Ctrl K
Connected to a number of worksheet objects, including shapes, charts and wordart
You can also add a Hyperlink to many objects within Excel including Pictures, Shapes, Text Boxes, Word Art and Charts.
Right clicking a lot of these objects brings up the Objects Shortcuts Menu, select Hyperlink…,
or
Select the object, Use the Insert, Hyperlinks Tab; or
Select the Object and Use the Keyboard Shortcut – Ctrl K
Hint: Right Clicking on Charts Doesn’t Show the Add Hyperlink option, so Select the Chart and Ctrl K
Adding Hyperlinks using Worksheet Formulas.
Hyperlinks can be added using worksheet formulas.
=HYPERLINK( Link Location, Name)
Link Location: This is the path and file name to the document to be opened.
The Link Location can refer to a place in a document – such as a specific cell or named range in an Excel worksheet or workbook, or to a bookmark in a Microsoft Word document. The path can be to a file that is stored on a hard disk drive. The path can also be the path on a server or a URL, HTTP or FTP and a location of an object, document, World Wide Web page, or other destination on the Internet or an intranet. The Link Location can be a text string enclosed in quotation marks or a reference to a cell that contains the link as a text string.
Name: This is the text or value that is displayed in the cell. The Name is displayed in blue and is underlined.
Eg:
Jump to a cell on Another sheet
=HYPERLINK(Sheet3!B3,”Monthly Budget”)
The above will add a Hyperlink, titled “Monthly Budget” and link to Sheet3!B3 of the current workbook
Jump to a Named Range on Another sheet
=HYPERLINK(Budget,”Yearly Budget”)
The above will add a Hyperlink, titled “Yearly Budget” and link to the Named Range “Budget” of the current workbook
Open a File on a network Drive
=HYPERLINK(“//Server01\01 Administration\Administration.docx”,”Open Admin File”)
The above will add a Hyperlink, titled “Open Admin File” and link to the file at: //Server01\01 Administration\Administration.docx
Open a File on a network Drive at a specific bookmark
=HYPERLINK(“[//Server01\01 Administration\Administration.docx]Contents”,”Open Admin File @ TOC”)
The above will add a Hyperlink, titled “Open Admin File @ TOC” and link to the Named Section “Contents” of the file at: //Server01\01 Administration\Administration.docx
Jump to a Web Page
=HYPERLINK(“http://chandoo.org/wp/”,”Goto Chandoo.org”)
The above will add a Hyperlink, titled “Goto Chandoo.org” and link to http://chandoo.org/wp/
Send an Email
=HYPERLINK(“mailto:chandoo.d@gmail.com”,”Email Chandoo”)
The above will add a Hyperlink, titled “Email Chandoo” and send an email to chandoo.d@gmail.com
Adding Hyperlinks Programmatically using VBA
Hyperlinks can be added to a worksheet or a worksheet object programmatically using some simple code
Sheets(SheetName).Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Sheets(SheetName).Range(Range), Address:=””, SubAddress:=”Address!Range“, TextToDisplay:=NameWhere:
SheetName: The Name of the Sheet where the Hyperlink is to go
Range: The Range where the Hyperlink is to go
Address!Range: The address and Range linked to in the Hyperlink
Name: The Display Name of the Hyperlink
Types of Hyperlinks
There are 5 Types of Hyperlinks which Excel offers, each is described below:
- Existing File
- Existing Web Page
- Place in This Document
- Create a New Document
- Send an Email Link
Existing File
Select the existing File or Web Page icon in the Link to: area
Navigate to the existing file using the Look in: area of the dialog
Add your Display Text in the Text to display: area
Add a ScreenTip…, a Tip which is displayed when you hover the mouse over a Hyperlink
Use the Bookmark… button to jump to predefined Named Ranges and common Cell References dialog
Existing Web Page
Select the Existing File or Web Page icon in the Link to: area
Navigate to the existing file using the Look in: area of the dialog
Add your Display Text in the Text to display: area
Add a ScreenTip…, a Tip which is displayed when you hover the mouse over a Hyperlink
Place in This Document
Select the Place in this Document icon in the Link to: area
Type in Cell Reference using the Type in Cell Reference: area of the dialog or select a Defined Names in the Defined Names area
Add your Display Text in the Text to display: area
Add a ScreenTip…, a Tip which is displayed when you hover the mouse over a Hyperlink
Create a New Document
Select the Create New Document icon in the Link to: area
Type in the Name of the New Document in the Name of the New Document: area of the dialog.
Add your Display Text in the Text to display: area
Add a ScreenTip…, a Tip which is displayed when you hover the mouse over a Hyperlink
You can choose wether to Edit the File Now or Later in the When to Edit area
Send an Email Link
Select the Email Address icon in the Link to: area
Type in the Email Address in the Email Address: area of the dialog.
Add your Display Text in the Text to display: area
Add your Email Subject in the Subject: area
Add a ScreenTip…, a Tip which is displayed when you hover the mouse over a Hyperlink.
Editing Hyperlinks
Once you have a hyperlink established you can edit the hyperlink by right click on the hyperlink and select Edit Hyperlink
The Edit Hyperlink dialog will vary depending on the type of Hyperlink as described above.
Deleting Hyperlinks
Once you have a hyperlink established you can delete the hyperlink by right click on the hyperlink and select Remove Hyperlink
Hyperlink Uses
Hyperlink can be used for a number of uses as described above.
Tables of Contents
One common use of hyperlinks is the creation of Tables of Contents.
The construction of a Table of Contents page was discussed here Table of Contents
The construction of Tables of Contents can also be automated using some simple VBA.
So instead of reinventing the wheel I will direct you to The Microsoft Office Blog where Tables of Conents were recently discussed.
Table of Contents 1 or Table of Contents 2
Dealing with Lots of Hyperlinks
The following 2 posts at http://chandoo.org/forums have solved users problems and will easily be adapted to other Hyperlink issues
Find Dead Hyperlinks
http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/check-broken-external-hyperlinks
Edit Hyperlinks
http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/marco-for-editing-link-in-workbook
How have you used Hyperlinks?
How have you used Hyperlinks?
Let us all know in the comments below:
30 Responses to “Rescue oddly shaped data – Battle between Formulas, VBA and Power Query”
Nice use of Power Query! Power Query is simply awesome! But somehow a lot of people are punishing themselves by not using it (not learning it).
An imperfect 4th approach for consideration... no codes at all...
Select myrange.
Go to Special --> Blank
Delete Cell --> Shift cell left
90% done... now we just need to move the data of 2nd column to the bottom of 1st column
Of course... Power Query is the best.
Cheers,
There is another way but it involves multiple steps:
Copy the values in column E, move the cursor to F5, Paste Special with Skip Blanks, OK
Copy the values in column D, move the cursor to F8, Paste Special with Skip Blanks, OK
And so on.
This works perfectly, albeit a little clumsily apart from the values in B17 and C16, which can be moved with simple copy and paste
Power Query Forever! I do not know how I survived for so long without knowing and using this tool, I can not recommend it to my colleagues, but by the way they prefer to suffer to learn.
My congratulations here from Brazil.
I rolled my eyes when I saw that data
Using decimal places is a nice trick to order data, thanks for that
And tweaking the first formula a bit, you can use OFFSET instead of INDIRECT
=OFFSET($A$1, MIN(IF(myrange, ROW(myrange)), ROWS(A$1:A1))-1, RIGHT(TEXT(MIN(IF(myrange, ROW(myrange) + COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001), ROWS(A$1:A1)), ".00000"), 5)-1)
Tried the above formula with the downloaded oddly shaped data file and I could not get it to work. I get #value without ctrl+shift+enter, and #ref with ctrl+shift+enter.
Sorry, it was SMALL, not MIN.
Add with CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.
Thank you for your formula. Like the indirect formula I tested this one in older versions of EXCEL and it worked without ALTERATION in EXCEL 95. Very impressive.
Too complicated
Use =Sum to summarize all the sells to the left and Bobs Your Uncle
@Bertie... I am afraid that won't work when you have more than one value in a row.
I tested this formula in versions of Excel all the way back to Excel 95
=IF(ISERROR(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(MyRange"",ROW(MyRange)+COLUMN(MyRange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A9)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)),"",(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(MyRange"",ROW(MyRange)+COLUMN(MyRange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A9)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)))
So there are multiple ways of cleaning up messy data by formulas.
Wow.. Excel 95. Who knew people still use that. But as you have shown, Excel has all these beautiful and powerful functions for 23 years. It has data sciency stuff before DS was even a thing.
I had a problem with pasting the formula in the original post.
Formula should be: =IF(ISERROR(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange"",ROW(myrange)+COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A1)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)),"",(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange"",ROW(myrange)+COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A1)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)))
EXCEL even in a 16 bit version, is a very robust and capable program.
I don't like the VBA code. If you have a blank row in MyRange, the last entry in the range is doubled up in the paste.here range.
Not really. The macro is writing one cell at a time from paste.here. You have to clean the range before, which I was too lazy to write. But a line like Range(range("paste.here"), range("paste.here").end(xldown)).clearcontents should do the trick.
Adding Range(range("paste.here"), range("paste.here").end(xldown)).clearcontents fixed the problem.
for step split column by delimiter i am not getting option of split into rows or columns. Can you help me in this
Thanks Chandoo for promoting Power Query.
To simplify further, you can "Unpivot Columns" instead of right click on the newly created column and split it by comma in to rows in step 3 of Power Query.
i used
=LOOKUP(10000,B5:F5)
and got the answers. I just plagiarized this formula somewhere and use it, maybe you can explain why it works.
Regards
@Johan... I am not sure if the formula works correctly. When I tested it with the sample data in this post, it showed #N/As in two cells. Essentially, it will only give first value in each row. So if a row has multiple values, then subsequent values are missed. LOOKUP() function goes thru a list and finds the first value that is less than or equal to the input - in this case 10000 in B5:F5.
I have the need to convert pdf's to excel on occasion and they often come out a mess like this. I have used:
Cell G2 =COUNT(myrange)
Cell G3 =IFERROR(IF(G2-1<1,"",G2-1),"") copied down to G100
Cell H2 =IFERROR(LARGE(myrange,G2),"") copied down to H100
Waouw...
=IFERROR(INDIRECT("R" & SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange "", ROW(myrange) + COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),
ROWS(A$1:A1)), "00000.00000"), ".", "C"), FALSE), "")
but CTRL Shift Enter with {} before and after 🙂 😀
Here's a way with pivot table
https://www.bookkempt.com/2018/02/aligning-non-contiguous-data.html
This is brilliant. Bookmarked 🙂
Another possibility.
This assumes that you have a row index 'k' to use in the SMALL function and a column index 'h' to identify the columns of 'myRange'.
If you define 'coord' to refer to
=k+h/10 [assuming h<10]
then it will be possible to recover values later based upon location within 'myRange'. The formula 'nb' that identifies non-blanks by coordinates is given by
= SMALL( IF(myRange"", coord), k )
Finally, to unpick the pieces
= INDEX( myRange, INT(nb), 10*MOD(nb, 1) )
Whilst I am here and making trouble the PQ solution is also a tad over-complicated. All that is needed is to unpivot the entire table and remove the Attribute column.
The advanced editor would show
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="myRange"]}[Content],
#"Unpivoted Columns" = Table.UnpivotOtherColumns(Source, {}, "Attribute", "Value"),
#"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Unpivoted Columns",{"Attribute"})
in
#"Removed Columns"
1.fill the blank cells with 0
2.the requested column value=sum of those mess number column
but this can be used in only one column has value
Chandoo
And if we use the formula SEARCH (100000000, B5: F5)
JC
Another approach with Power Query, it will still work if the number of columns changed:
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="myrange"]}[Content],
#"Added Custom" = Table.AddColumn(Source, "List", each Record.ToList(_)),
#"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Added Custom",{"List"}),
#"Expanded LIst" = Table.ExpandListColumn(#"Removed Other Columns", "List"),
#"Filtered Rows" = Table.SelectRows(#"Expanded LIst", each ([List] null))
in
#"Filtered Rows"
Cool idea to use Record.ToList as added column. Thanks for sharing this.
Nowadays, you can just use TOCOL on Excel 2024, MS 365, and Web Excel. It has a parameter to ignore blanks/errors/both.