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Hyperlinks in Word and PowerPoint files: the addresses, ScreenTips and intranet links behind the text you see

Last updated: 28 October 2026

This page is about links in Word and PowerPoint. Links to files in an Excel workbook, HYPERLINK formulas included, are in full paths in Excel workbooks; what a OneDrive or SharePoint link to the whole file shows, compared with an attachment, is in links vs attachments; and fields that pull in other files, such as INCLUDETEXT and linked pictures, are in custom XML and embedded objects.

The text and the address are kept apart

Microsoft's page Create or edit a hyperlink describes the Insert Hyperlink box, where you "enter your target-destination link in the Address box" and can "enter different wording in the Text to display box". It also says you can "create links to files on your computer". What the reader sees is the text to display; the address is stored apart from it, and nothing on the page shows it until someone opens the link's Edit Hyperlink box, follows the link, or rests the pointer on a link that has no ScreenTip of its own.

In the file, the standard quoted in Microsoft's Open XML documentation gives this example for Word: a hyperlink "whose display text is Click here, and whose target is specified by the relationship with an Id attribute value of rId10" (hyperlink, ISO/IEC 29500-1, 1st edition). For PowerPoint, a run of text "is a hyperlink that points to the resource pointed at by rId2 within this slides relationship file" (hlinkClick). The addresses themselves are in the relationships parts.

What the address can say

• An intranet or SharePoint address. A link to a page or file on an internal site is an address on that site, and an address is made of names: a site called after a department, say, a folder called after a client, and the file's own name. The text on the page can say only "the policy".
• A path on your computer or a server. A link to a file can be a full path, with your user folder in it, or a server and share. PowerPoint's page Add a hyperlink to a slide warns: "If you link to a file on your computer, and move your PowerPoint presentation to another computer, you'll also need to move any linked files." The link does not open for the recipient, but its path is still in the file.
• A sharing link. A OneDrive or SharePoint sharing link pasted as an address opens the file for whoever has it, depending on its settings. Microsoft's page Share files and folders in Microsoft OneDrive says an Anyone link "gives access to anyone who receives this link, whether they receive it directly from you or forwarded from someone else. This may include people outside of your organization." A document that holds such a link passes that access on with the file. Sharing links to the whole file, compared with attachments, are in links vs attachments.
• A place in another document. The Windows page describes linking to "a location in another document", a heading or bookmark in it, so the address names that file and the place in it.

ScreenTips, and the list of hyperlinks in the properties

A ScreenTip is text shown when the pointer rests on a link. The Windows page says you can "customize the ScreenTip" in the Insert Hyperlink box; Microsoft's page Create or edit a hyperlink in Office for Mac adds: "If you don't specify a tip, Word uses the path or address of the file as the tip." A ScreenTip someone typed is kept in the file with the link: the standard's PowerPoint example has tooltip="Some Sample Text" on the link itself, and Microsoft's reference lists a w:tooltip attribute on Word's hyperlink. It can hold a note that was never meant for the reader. The Mac page's wording also means that a tip someone typed shows in place of the path or address, so hovering is not a way to read the address.

The file format also has links that act when the pointer rests on something. For a run of text, hlinkMouseOver: "When the mouse is hovered over this hyperlink text the link is fetched" (hlinkMouseOver). For a shape or picture, hlinkHover, "the hyperlink information to be activated when the user's mouse is hovered over the corresponding object" (hlinkHover), which the standard allows on a drawing object's properties in Word as well as PowerPoint. Each has an address of its own.

The extended properties, in docProps/app.xml, can hold two more items. HLinks "specifies the set of hyperlinks that were in this document when last saved" (HyperlinkList), which means the properties can hold the addresses a second time, apart from the links. HyperlinkBase "specifies the base string used for evaluating relative hyperlinks in this document" (HyperlinkBase); if relative links are meant to resolve against a folder, this is where that folder is named.

Where each one is in the file

What Document Inspector covers

Microsoft's page Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks does not list hyperlinks among what it finds in Word or PowerPoint. Its Document Properties and Personal Information inspector removes the document properties, so it may take HLinks and HyperlinkBase with them, but the page does not name them. The links in the text stay: treat them as content and check them yourself.

Check the links in Word and PowerPoint

1. Work on a copy. In Word, right-click each link and select Edit Hyperlink, as the Create or edit a hyperlink page describes, to read the Address box, and select ScreenTip there to read its tip. PowerPoint's page describes the Insert Hyperlink box with the same fields: Text to display, ScreenTip and Address. Do not rely on hovering: a custom ScreenTip shows in place of the address.
2. In Word, press Alt+F9 to switch between field codes and their results, as Microsoft's page Insert, edit, and view fields in Word describes. A link made by a HYPERLINK field shows its address in the code, and its ScreenTip after the \o switch, which Microsoft's page Field codes: Hyperlink field describes as "Specifies the ScreenTip text for the hyperlink." The same page warns: "Because field codes can be visible to anyone reading your document, be sure that the information you place in field codes is not information that you want kept private." Press Alt+F9 again to go back.
3. Look at links on shapes, pictures and text boxes, in headers and footers, and in footnotes, comments and speaker notes as well as the body.
4. Replace an internal address with one the recipient can open, or remove the link. Microsoft's page Remove or turn off hyperlinks says: "To remove a hyperlink but keep the text, right-click the hyperlink and select Remove Hyperlink". For Word it also gives Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+Shift+F9, to remove all of them. Microsoft's list of keyboard shortcuts in Word gives Ctrl+Shift+F9 as "Unlink a field", so the keys act on the other fields in the selection too, such as a table of contents; use them on a copy and look at what changed. Links in headers, footers, footnotes and text boxes are outside the body, so check them one by one as in step 3.
5. If a sharing link has to stay, check its settings in OneDrive or SharePoint before you send the file: who it gives access to, and whether it allows editing.

Check a copy of the file

1. Make a copy, rename it to .zip and unzip it.
2. Open every file whose name ends in .rels, in word/_rels or ppt/slides/_rels and the other _rels folders, and search for TargetMode="External". Each match is an address the file points to outside itself: read its Target.
3. Search every .xml part, not only word/document.xml or the slides, for tooltip to find ScreenTips, and Word's parts for HYPERLINK to find links made by fields, with their ScreenTips after \o.
4. Open docProps/app.xml and look for HLinks and HyperlinkBase.
5. Finding nothing this way shows only that these searches found nothing, not that the file holds nothing else.

What ScrubDrop does

ScrubDrop reads the file in your browser; it is not uploaded. For free, one file at a time, it lists links to files, that is links whose address is a file: address, a drive or share path or a relative path, HYPERLINK fields included, under links to other files, with the start of the address as a sample, among the other kinds of hidden data it supports. The free version removes the document properties, and the extended properties part goes whole, HLinks and HyperlinkBase with it; it removes comments and accepts tracked changes. Links to files stay.

ScrubDrop Pro removes links to other files: the address goes with the link and its ScreenTip, and the text that showed the link stays. Web addresses, an intranet or SharePoint address or a sharing link among them, and email links are kept in both versions and are not listed, with their ScreenTips: ScrubDrop treats a web link as part of the content. Read those yourself as above. The result is read again with separate parsers, and a file that does not pass is not offered.

Questions

Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 28 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.