Automating the Insertion of Hyperlinks in MS Word Footnotes
The technique I described on the previous night’s posting is one of several posted on the internet which will allow you to use a macro to automatically insert hyperlinks in MS Word. Some of them, like the one I posted, work well. Others don’t. However nowhere online have I been able to find a technique which would allow you to auto-insert links in footnotes in MS Word. The process I outlined last night in this blog will not add in links in footnotes.
I was able to find a solution to this problem on my own. It involves using an Add-in for MS Word called NoteStripper. NoteStripper is available from a business called Editorium, at http://www.editorium.com/15078.htm for only $30. While it was not designed for the purpose of allowing a macro to link documents in footnotes, it will allow you to do this. NoteStripper converts the footnotes in a Word document to text at the end of the document. [Word includes an option to change footnotes to endnotes, but a macro will still not operate on text formatted as endnotes in Word.]. After installing NoteStripper follow these steps (refer to the screen grabs posted below - you have to refer back to the May 26, 2015 postings on the main page if you linked to this blog entry directly):
Begin with a Word document where you have the citations you want to link to listed in footnotes.
In MS Word 2010, go to Add-Ins . . . NoteStripper, Notes to Text.
Strip out the notes in your active document.
Choose the options for ‘Footnotes’, and ‘End of document’.
The footnotes will be listed at the end of the Word document.
Repeat the steps from last night’s technique, going to References, Insert Index, Auto Mark, and selecting the Word concordance table with the citations in one column, and the path to the files you’re linking to in the next column.The paths will be added to XE fields in Word.
Run the ‘MakeHyperlinks’ macro, being careful to first edit it so that it references the folder where you have saved your PDFs, using only the first letter of the last subfolder.Enter the character count of the truncated path. Then save and close. Finally run the macro.The links to the citations will be added. Put your cursor at the beginning of the footnote list.Then go back to the Add-in ribbon and select Notestripper, Text to Notes
Select ‘Footnote Reference character style’ and ‘Embed Notes as Footnotes’.
Presto! You will now have active hyperlinks in the footnotes.