Inserting Hyperlinks

PowerPoint Lesson 2: Part 7 (Embedding Hyperlinks)

Please Note: This session builds on, and assumes that you have completed, the previous PowerPoint sessions. If that is not the case, please go back and complete them before returning to this session.

STEP 1: Opening a Presentation

You should by now have at least one or more saved PowerPoint presentations. Select one and double-click it to launch it in PowerPoint. I will use the following presentation:

STEP 2: Add a New Slide

Start by adding this title.

A hyperlink normally takes you to an external website – but not always. It can direct you to a file on your current computer, an email address or a normal external website. In this session we look at different ways to embed and use hyperlinks in your presentation. We are going to use this new slide to list a set of hyperlinks which will direct the audience of this presentation to further details.

STEP 3: Inserting Hyperlinks – Manual Text Insertion

The most obvious and easy way is simply to get online, do some research and find some useful websites. Then copy their web addresses directly into your slide. This is shown below:

Using ‘Control + Click’ you can then launch each one in term:

The first link takes me to the following website:

STEP 4: Using the Built-In ‘Link’ Option – Websites

A second approach is to employ the built-in ‘Link’ option – under the INSERT menu.

As it shows, there are no recent links, but you can insert a new link to just about anything. By default, when you click the ‘Insert Link’ option, you will see:

If you want to search on the web, click the ‘globe’ icon and it will open up a web browser:

You can then search for what your seeking:

This will, in turn, launch the MS Bing search engine:

You can then scroll down and select the websites you wish to include – such as this one:

You can then add specific web links to the slide by selecting them from the drop-down box and then clicking ‘OK’…

See the two examples overleaf.

As we will see later in this session, the actual name of the hyperlink on the slide can be customized to make it more readable and attractive – unlike this example here!

Just ‘Control + Click’ as normal to launch them.

STEP 5: Using the Built-In ‘Link’ Option – MS Word Documents

You can also include hyperlinks that direct the user to documents and files on the current device. Simply click the folder icon and navigate to the right place on your device.

I will use my ‘Supporting Resources’ folder:

Which currently contains 3 files:

Select one and click ‘OK’.

This loads the file details into PowerPoint:

It is important to change the name of the link on the slide to make it more readable:

When you are happy you have the right document and a good name for the link, click ‘OK’.

This will then add the re-named hyperlink to the slide:

If you then ‘Control + Click’ the link, it will automatically locate, open and display the specified Word document:

STEP 6: Using the Built-In ‘Link’ Option – PDF Documents

We will now do a similar thing with the PDF version of this file:

Select the file you want and click ‘OK’. This will then take you to:

Notice how we have changed the name of the link again to make it look neater. We now have:

STEP 7: Using the Built-In ‘Link’ Option – Images

Finally, we will include a hyperlink to a stored image:

Select the file you want and click ‘OK’. This will then take you to:

Again, we have changed the name of the link again to make it look neater. We now have:

We can now prove the other two links work by doing ‘Control + Click’ on each one:

PDF link gives:

Image link gives:

STEP 8: Using the Built-In ‘Link’ Option – Emails

The last feature we will cover in this session is how to embed hyperlinks that automatically email a specified address. As usual, go to the ‘Link’ option and select ‘Email Address’.

Set the text of the hyperlink, the actual email address (use mailto:) and a subject heading – so you know what it is when it lands in your inbox. See above screenshot. Then click ‘OK’ and you will see:

Do ‘Control + Click’ on this email link and if you are prompted by PowerPoint on which email application to use, select the one you want:

To prove it works, here is a screenshot of the email in my inbox:

Maybe you want a dedicated link/email to handle errors and suggestions for your presentation? No problem, just create another separate link:

Set the link name, email address and subject as before and click ‘OK’:

Again, here is the proof that the email was sent after clicking the hyperlink:

That completes this session.

Now your turn…

Practice Tasks

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Launch PowerPoint (see first session).

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Either create a new blank presentation or open up an existing one.

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Manually insert some suitable hyperlinks to websites and then launch them.

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Use the built-in ‘Link’ option to insert hyperlinks to:

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External websites

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Internal Word documents

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Internal PDF documents

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Internal Images

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Send an email to yourself (check it arrived)

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Re-save if you wish.

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