Add or Modify Hyperlinks

What is this page about?

This page explains how to work with hyperlinks inside Word documents.

A hyperlink in Microsoft Word documents is the HYPERLINK field. In Aspose.Words, hyperlinks are implemented through the FieldHyperlink class.

Insert a Hyperlink

Use the InsertHyperlink method to insert a hyperlink into the document. This method accepts three parameters:

1. Text of the link to be displayed in the document
2. Link destination (URL or a name of a bookmark inside the document)
3. Boolean parameter that should be true if the URL is a name of a bookmark inside a document

The InsertHyperlink method always adds apostrophes at the beginning and end of the URL.

Note that you need to specify font formatting for the hyperlink display text explicitly using the Font property.

The following code example shows how to insert a hyperlink into a document using DocumentBuilder:

Replace or Modify Hyperlinks

Hyperlink in Microsoft Word documents is a field. A field in a Word document, as we said earlier, is a complex structure consisting of multiple nodes that include field start, field code, field separator, field result and field end. Fields can be nested, contain rich content and span multiple paragraphs or sections in a document.

To replace or modify hyperlinks, it is need to find the hyperlinks in the document and replace either their text, URLs, or both.

The following code example shows how to find all hyperlinks in Word document and changes their URL and display name:

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FAQ

1. Q: How do I insert a hyperlink that points to an external URL?
   A: Use DocumentBuilder.InsertHyperlink with the display text, the full URL (e.g., https://www.example.com), and set the third parameter to false. After insertion, you can format the link text via builder.Font (e.g., set builder.Font.Color = Color.Blue; builder.Font.Underline = Underline.Single;).

2. Q: How can I create a hyperlink that points to a bookmark inside the same document?
   A: Pass the bookmark name as the second argument to InsertHyperlink and set the third argument to true. The method will treat the second argument as a bookmark reference rather than an external URL.

3. Q: What is the recommended way to change the display text of an existing hyperlink?
   A: Locate the FieldHyperlink object, access its Result node (which holds the displayed text), and replace the text with the new string. After updating, you may need to re‑apply font formatting if the style should differ.

4. Q: How can I modify the URL of a hyperlink that is already in the document?
   A: Find the FieldHyperlink instance, then update its Hyperlink property (or the field code) with the new URL string. Call field.Update() to refresh the field result so the change is reflected in the document.

5. Q: Is there a way to remove a hyperlink while keeping its display text?
   A: Yes. Remove the FieldHyperlink node from the document tree but keep its Result node (the text). You can do this by extracting the Result node, inserting it back into the parent, and then deleting the entire field node hierarchy. This leaves the plain text in the document without the hyperlink.