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Federica370702447a5d
Participating Frequently
May 2, 2024
Question

Long list of hyperlinks from Excel to Indesign

  • May 2, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 783 views

Hi,

I have a very long document in Excel which I have copied into a table in Indesign. In each cell there are a list of words with hyperlinks. I need to make sure every word has its own hyperlink in Indesign. Considering it's a more than 100 pages document, is there a fast way to do this instead of copy-pasting each single url?
Below it's an image of how the cells look on Excel and on Indesign. Thank you!

2 replies

P
ProductionB830
Participant
September 17, 2025

I just found the solution to place a long list with several hyperlinks into indesign, just in case people from the future need the answer...

1.- You have to go to InDesign Preferences/Clipboard Handling, and activate 'All Information' button (instead of 'Text Only)
2.- Export the original list to an .rtf format (Rich Text Format) and import or drag the .rtf document into inDesign... (The .rtf document will carry all the hyperlinks)

Robert at ID-Tasker
Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
May 2, 2024

If you know the number of Hyperlinks in Excel - then this simple script will tell you how many Hyperlinks overall and how many URL Hyperlinks there are in your document:

alert('Number of ALL Hyperlinks = ' + app.activeDocument.hyperlinks.length);
alert('Number of URL Hyperlinks = ' + app.activeDocument.hyperlinkURLDestinations.length);

 

If you work on a PC and want something more powerful - even free version of my ID-Tasker will show you a lot more info.

 

    F
    Federica370702447a5dAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 2, 2024

    Apologies, maybe it's not clear, I don't need to know how many hyperlinks are in the document, I need a fast way of copy pasting them onto the Indesign document. Every word needs to have its own hyperlink like in the Excel document.

    Robert at ID-Tasker
    Robert at ID-Tasker
    Legend
    May 2, 2024
    quote

    Apologies, maybe it's not clear, I don't need to know how many hyperlinks are in the document, I need a fast way of copy pasting them onto the Indesign document. Every word needs to have its own hyperlink like in the Excel document.


    By @Federica370702447a5d

     

    So you don't have them in the InDesign yet?

     

    What happens if you copy part of your Excel file to InDesign?

     

    I mean when you select range of Cells in Excel, copy, and paste in InDesign.

     

    Or even use Place command and place whole Excel file at once.

     

    Or you can copy contents form Excel to WORD - reformat if needed - then copy from WORD to InDesign - or save WORD document and use Place.

     

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