Q: My accounting software enables me to export my customer data to Excel, but the customers’ email addresses do not show up as clickable hyperlinks. I must edit each email address one at a time to delete the leading apostrophe to convert the text-based email address to clickable email addresses. Is there an easier way to do this?
A: Excel 2010, 2007, and 2003 provide a hyperlink function that converts text to a clickable hyperlink. In the example below, I entered =HYPERLINK(L2) in cell M2, which converts the text-based data in cell L2 into a clickable hyperlink. I then copied this formula (in cell M2) down to convert the other text-based email addresses to clickable email addresses.
Caution: Using the Copy, Paste Values commands to convert the =HYPERLINK formula to regular text removes the hyperlink.