Excel hyperlinks not working after convert to PDF

I have tried every way possilbe using Excel and can't get it to work. What I did do what import my spreadheet into google docs, and then "download" the spreadsheet as a PDF. That maintained the hyperlinks.

I read through the list of 'solutions' and none of them worked for me. What I ended up having to do is save the file as an html page and then print the html page to PDF. This ended up converting the hyperlinks to PDF. I know it's a little bit of a hack, but it worked for me. Hopefully this is helpful to someone else.

So I've been having a similar issues.... this may apply to you as well... I thought I had an issue, until I realized that it is hyperlinking to PDF **BUT** because I merged a bunch of cells to fit the hyperlink, it only recognized the first cell in the merge. Basically, simple solution was to unmerge the hyper link text, then insert the link across several cells, instead of just one cell. The text will still show up across all the cells, as long as there is no text in the cells adjacent to it. I hope this helps...

I had a similar problem. I wanted to make a Phone Directory for work which was loaded up to Microsoft TEAMS. I searched everywhere. I was stuck with uploading an Excel file. It worked but I wasn't happy with it.

Then through a lot of trial and error I found in Excel I go to "Page Layout" and select "Print Area". I then save the document and select Copy. The go to Word and Paste it. From there I can adjust the Custom page size to fit and I even changed the Paper colour to match the Original Excel file so I don't see the white areas at the bottom. It now looks and operates just like an APP, so good. Now to use the Phone directory the other staff only need to click on the name and the dialer opens up on their phone and they're on their way! I'm now making a contact list for all the other departments. 

So to summerise, Excel- copy your work- paste to word, then save as a PDF. 

Hi Karl,

it has been 4 years since this issue first arose. It continues to be a problem. People using the hyperlink function and then converting excel sheets to pdf lose their hyperlinks. is there a solution being worked on, or an efficient work-around?

I have over 100 sheets with one tab as the source to a huge list of URLs that the sheets populate from in accordance to specific parameters. Once converted to pdf, not one single link on the sheets stick. 

There has to be a better way than to manually add them all back in Acrobat using the link tool. 

I created my hyperlinks using =Hyperlink(,). I did this because I want the hyperlink to have text that can be pulled from a column and link that can be pulled from another column. This will allow the updating of the names and links from a master sheet routinely without need to go into all of the sheets that pull the same data. I can't get (Insert > Hyperlink) to pull the data from my existing columns. Am I missing something? Is there a way to use (Insert>Hyperlink) to pull from existing columns?

If you are lucky enough to be using Excel on a Mac not a PC, then the chances are you have the (free) spreadsheet program Numbers too, if not download from the App Store.

Apple know that you probably want links to work when you export a PDF, Numbers can also open Excel files, so steps are as follows:

1. open your Excel file in Numbers
2. export as a PDF, the links just work.
3. there is no 3, its that easy.

Sorry, I know that is of no help to Windows users, I'm unfortunate enough to have to use Windows for most of my work, but if you've got a Mac, its easy this way!

Hi, have the same problem like reported yet by several peoples here.
Adobe is very bold: NO solution! Issue caused by ADOBE is shown: working on old Version of Acrobat DC pro 2015.016.20045 - NOT working on current Version 2018.011.2005. In both cases identical versions of Excel and identical input xls-file have been used.

Adobde SUPPORT chat was CANCLED without offering any solution by Adobe!
Citation in German:
"Christoph:

Es liegt nicht in meiner Absicht Sie zu verärgern. Ich kann Ihnen hierbei allerdings keine Lösung anbieten, da die Quelle der PDF Excel ist. Excel gehört zu Microsoft und kann daher auch nur von Microsoft supportet werden. Da wir uns hier leider im Kreis drehen, werde ich den Chat jetzt beenden. Ich bitte um Ihr Verständnis und wünsche Ihnen noch einen angenehmen Tag.

STRANGE and outrageous reaction by ADOBE

FYI - Per one of my company's IT contract people, this is a known issue with Excel 2016/365 and is most likely Microsoft's problem to fix. (He tested for this problem on other PDF maker software and found the same problem.)

Unfortunately, I was also told that Microsoft is NOT ACCEPTING BUG REPORTS for Excel 2016/365 at this time, so we are stuck trying to work around it.

For me, this results in me still using Excel 2007 when I need hyperlinks, which to be honest SUCKS...but it's not Adobe's issue.

If anyone has further information it would be great to hear it here at some point.

Both options you've used ("Print to PDF" and "Save as PDF") will not bring over the links to the PDF document. When you look at the combination of Acrobat and MS Word, you have at least three different ways to convert to PDF: Word comes with it's own PDF generator that is available even when Acrobat is not installed. Once you install Acrobat, you have two more methods: You can print to the "Adobe PDF" printer, and you can use the "PDF Maker" macro that installs a toolbar or a ribbon in your MS Office application. Printing to PDF will always strip out any interactive content (and more), only the PDF Maker will give you a high quality PDF file. Follow Tariq's instructions to verify that the setting is correctly selected, and then use the "Create PDF" on the Acrobat toolbar to actually generate the PDF output file.