Remove links from Word documents

Question

For years I have been able to remove links from Word documents by selecting them and clicking Crtl + Shift + F9.

That keystroke combination no longer works in Word 2013 and 2015. There must beanother way to "unlink the fields" in Word.

I've tried searching the commands available to the Quick Access Toolbar but to no avail.

I should add that someone in another thread suggested Command + 6 to unlink the fields. But I have no idea what the "Command" key is.

(Another suggestion was Option + F9!) I'd really appreciate some help.

BTW, the F9 key alone used to update the Table of Contents. Alas, that tool no longer works either, though I was able to add the command to the Quick Launch Toolbar.

Answer 1

The Metadata for your initial post indicates that you are using Office 2013 running under WIndows  7. If that is the case, references to a Command key are not relevant.

ALT+F9 does NOT remove links. What is does is toggle between the display of the field codes { } and the result of those fields of ALL of the fields in a document. SHIFT+F9 does the same thing for ONLY the field that is selected.

If you use CTRL+a to select everything in a document, CTRL+SHIFT+F9 will unlink ALL of the fields in the document, converting their results to ordinary text.

Thank you for the clarification regarding the "removal" of links. I did learn to undo the Alt+F9 (after a good deal of panic) by pressing the combination again, so I understand the idea of "toggling."

I used the Ctrl+Shift+F9 "unlink fields" combination (which I had learned from Suzanne Barnhill) to convert links to "ordinary text" for many years. What prompted my original post was that for some inexplicable reason, the combination was suddenly not working. The F9 key would not update Tables of Contents either.

However, those combinations are now working correctly. I did run the online repair, so I can only guess that whatever caused those functions to stop working was as mysteriously fixed. Since I don't understand anything about displaying field codes, I will avoid Alt+F9 and Shift+F9 in the future.

"All's well that ends well." Thanks again.

Regards, Grandpa

Answer 2

F9 is the shortcut for "update field" command.  That has not been changed in Word 2013 or 2016. If it is not working, there is a fundamental issue with your setup.  The issue causing <f9> to not work is probably affecting the other shortcut too.  Fix one, fix the other too.

The first, low impact thing to try is do an Office Repair.

If that does not work, try starting Word in Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away.

Shortcut to Start Word in Safe Mode or Excel in Safe Mode, Hold <CTL> key when clicking on icon or using the Start menu search window and entering WINWORD.EXE /a or  WINWORD.EXE /safe

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Work-with-Office-safe-modes-dedf944a-5f4b-4afb-a453-528af4f7ac72

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You could also try generating a list of your current shortcut keys. That may give you a clue what has caused the change:

Print A List Of Shortcut Keys http://wordribbon.tips.net/Pages/T005952_Print_a_List_of_Shortcut_Keys.html

Here is a list of the default shortcut key assignments: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Keyboard-shortcuts-for-Microsoft-Word-2016-for-Windows-95ef89dd-7142-4b50-afb2-f762f663ceb2

Let us know what happens

Answer 3

Things went from bad to worse when I lost the TOCs from all of my documents. I did run the Office repair, both quick and long. Still had the issue.

It seems that while I was trying to remove links from an individual document, I read on another post that Option (Alt) + F9 was the new shortcut. However, what happened then was that all links were removed from all of my documents. The Tables of Contents would not appear in any of them. I was able to "fix" that by pressing Alt + F9 again. The TOCs now appear in all of my documents.

I'm still at a loss as to why I can't just remove the links ("unlink the fields") from only the currently active document.

I appreciate your input.

Answer 4

Absolutely nothing has changed since the days when Word came with Manuals and Keyboard templates

F9 - Update Field

ALT+F9 - Toggle display of Field Codes

CTRL+F9 - Insert an empty field { }

CTRL+SHIFT+F9 - Unlink Field (convert the result to ordinary text

CTRL+F11 - Lock Field

CTRL+SHIFT+F11 - Unlock Field