How to add clickable hyperlinks to table of contents?

Question

I've looked at every community post about this, but still haven't found anything that will work. I'm trying to add clickable hyperlinks to my Table of Contents in Word. I've already generated the Table of Contents using Automatic Table 2. It has generated fine, but I need to add hyperlinks to the Table of Contents. I've followed several videos online (including one from Microsoft) that instruct me to highlight the portion I want to hyperlink, then go to the insert tab, select the link option, and select the heading that I want to link it to. I've done this on several headings within the table, and I can even go back into the heading and see that the hyperlink is there. However, the text in the table of contents is not clickable. Whenever I try to click the text, it just opens up the Table of Contents to edit it rather than taking me to the linked page. I've used AltF9 to check the code as suggested in one of the community posts I saw, and it is correct. Like I mentioned, I can also tell that the hyperlink is there when I go in to edit the hyperlink, but the text itself looks unchanged (there is no blue text or underline that sometimes indicates it is clickable) and the curser clicks inside of the heading as if to edit it instead of sending me to the correct place within the document (even when I have clicked out of the table of contents field).

Answer 1

Or, just use the instruction to hold down the Ctrl key when using the hyperlink.

Answer 2

Or, just use the instruction to hold down the Ctrl key when using the hyperlink.

Of course, that would be an option. It is just that the OP specifically asked how to turn off the requirement to hold the Ctrl key. :-)

Answer 3

Thank you! This was so helpful!

Answer 4

Hi - I know that the TOC is linked to where I want it to go - but I want my audience who is looking at my handbook to KNOW that they are links and can click on them to get to the content. I'm afraid they won't hover enough over it to realize that they can do the ctrl + click.

Thanks for any advice.

Answer 5

Hi - I know that the TOC is linked to where I want it to go - but I want my audience who is looking at my handbook to KNOW that they are links and can click on them to get to the content. I'm afraid they won't hover enough over it to realize that they can do the ctrl + click.

Thanks for any advice.

Unfortunately, there is no option in Word to make entries in a hyperlinked TOC to actually look like hyperlinks.

You can turn off the requirement to Ctrl + click, but that setting is user-specific and installation-specific. The setting won't travel with the document.