@bradyjgavin
Jan 30, 2020, 11:23 am EST | 1 min read
Whenever you copy text from the web and paste it into Google Docs, any hyperlinks it contains transfer with it. Here’s how to paste text without hyperlinks or remove links already embedded within a document.
Paste Text into Docs Using Paste without Formatting
The first option to remove hyperlinks is to prevent them from transferring in the first place. Stop the links from entering your file by using the “Paste without Formatting” feature to strip the embedded URL from all formatting as you paste it into your document.
After you select some text that contains a hyperlink or two, fire up a browser, head to your Google Docs homepage, and open a new document.
Click “Edit” from the menu bar and then select “Paste without Formatting.”
Paste without formatting.” width=”650″ height=”426″ src=” onload=”pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);” onerror=”this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);”/>
Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V (Windows/Chrome OS) or Cmd+Shift+V (macOS) to accomplish the same “Paste without Formatting” function.
When you select “Paste without Formatting,” Docs strips all formatting—hyperlinks included—the source text had and matches your document’s default font rules.
If you use a different format style for your document than the “Normal Text” Docs chooses, it’s easy to change the default font.
Remove Hyperlinks Already in Your Document
Unfortunately, Google Docs doesn’t natively support the ability to remove multiple hyperlinks all at once. So, you will have to manually unlink each individually. Here’s how.
Fire up a browser and open a Google Docs document that already contains some text with hyperlinks in it.
Click anywhere on the text that contains a hyperlink, and when the dialog box opens, click on the “Unlink” icon.
Repeat this process for each hyperlink you want to remove from your document.
Disable Automatic Link Detection
By default, hyperlinks automatically generate when you type or paste an email or URL into a Google Docs document. However, if you don’t want them inserted automatically, the last thing you can do is disable the automatic detection of links from your document’s preferences.
Although this doesn’t prevent hyperlinks from appearing in your document when pasting text, it will stop email addresses and URL links from showing up when you aren’t expecting them to be there.
Fire up a browser, open a Google Docs file, and on the menu bar, click Tools > Preferences.
Preferences.” width=”650″ height=”503″ src=” onload=”pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);” onerror=”this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);”/>
From the list of preferences, uncheck the box next to “Automatically Detect Links” to disable this feature. Click “OK” to return to your document.
Now, when you paste email addresses or URLs into your document, they will no longer automatically appear as a link.
In Microsoft Office, there is a feature that allows you to remove all hyperlinks at once with a shortcut. Docs lacks this feature so it’s time-consuming to remove hyperlinks one by one manually. This article shows you a few options to quickly remove all hyperlinks in Docs.
Method 1: Use Office Word
This is a dumb method, perhaps you don’t want to hear. You could
- Export the Doc to Word .docx by File > Download as > Microsoft Word.
- Open the .docx. Select the text with hyperlinks.
- Press shortcut Ctrl + Shift + F9.
- The hyperlinks will go away.
- Clean the hyperlink underlines with Format Painter.
Method 2: Use Apps script
This method works well but more technical.
- Copy the apps script to your Docs script editor with a name Remove all hyperlinks. If you don’t know how to do it, here is a tutorial how to add an apps script to your Docs.
- Select the text in which you want to remove all hyperlinks. It doesn’t have to be the entire document.
- Click menu Add-ons > Remove all hyperlinks > Remove all hyperlinks.
- The hyperlinks shall be removed while the format is kept.
Remove all hyperlinks in Docs with the Apps script below
Method 3: Use Add-on
If you found here, you’re lucky. There is a free add-on on the market called Text Cleaner which does the job too. It’s more convenient and hassle free. The instruction is almost as same as method 2 except the menu Text Cleaner > Remove links and underlining.
Remove all hyperlinks with add-on Text Cleaner
Hope it works for you. Feel free to leave any comments. Thanks for reading.
The steps in this guide are going to show you how to remove a hyperlink from a document in Google Docs. We cover the steps briefly at the start of the article, then continue with pictures of the steps and additional information.
These steps will help you to delete an existing hyperlink from a Google Docs document.
Materials
- Google Docs file with a hyperlink to remove
Tools
- Google Account
- Google Docs
Instructions
- Open the file in Google Docs.
- Click on the linked text.
- Select the Remove option.
Notes
- You can access your Google Drive by going to
- You can use this same method to edit an existing link by choosing the Change option instead of Remove.
- Google Docs has a setting on the Tools > Preferences menu called “Automatically detect links” that you can turn off so that it stops automatically turning Web addresses into links.
The ability to add a link to a document is something that can come in handy for any program that allows that functionality. Creating a clickable object called a hyperlink means that someone can click on a word in your document and open a page on the Internet that is relevant to the topic of the document.
But you may find that a linked page in no longer relevant to the document, that the page has been removed, or that you simply don’t need to include the link inside the document. Fortunately removing a hyperlink in Google Docs is almost as simple as creating one in the first place, so you should be able to take the link out of your document in just a few moments.
How to Delete a Link in Google Docs
The steps in this article were performed on a document in Google Docs that has an existing hyperlink. Once you complete these steps, the link will be removed. However, the text to which the hyperlink is applied (also called “anchor text”) will remain in the document. Additionally, the underline that indicates the presence of a link will be removed, unless you have separately applied additional formatting to the text. If you need to draw a line through a word, read this article on using strikethrough in Google Docs.
Step 1: Go to Google Drive at and double-click on the document containing the hyperlink that you want to remove.
Step 2: Click on any part of the text containing the hyperlink.
Step 3: Click the Remove button to delete the hyperlink from the document.
Additional Information on Google Docs Links
- You can insert a link in Google Docs in a couple of different ways. First, if you select text then right-click on it, there is a Link option that lets you add hyperlinks. Second, the insert link keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + K. Third, you can click on the Insert tab at the top of the window, then choose the Link option there. Finally there is a link button in the toolbar above the document.
- You can remove a hyperlink in Google Sheets by right-clicking on the hyperlink, then choosing the Unlink option.
- If you want to remove hyperlinks from the entire Google Docs document you will need to download a Google Docs add-on called Text Cleaner. You can get it by going to Add-ons, searching for “Text Cleaner” then installing the add-on.
- To edit link information in Google Docs, click on the linked text, then choose the Change option.
- If you download your Google document in the Microsoft Word format and need to remove a hyperlink there, you can do so by opening the Word document, selecting the linked text, then right-clicking on it and choosing the Remove hyperlink option.
- If you need to remove links from Google Docs every time you type Web addresses, then you might want to turn off the setting that causes the link to be created whenever you type a Web page address. Go to Tools > Preferences, then remove the check mark next to Automatically detect links and click the OK button.
Is there a lot of formatting in your document, and you would prefer to simply remove all of it? Learn how to clear formatting in Google Docs to revert formatted text to its default state.
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Disclaimer: Most of the pages on the internet include affiliate links, including some on this site.
Often while creating an assignment or report, we need to collect references from multiple sources, and we eventually copy text from those places to paste it within our document. Even though we can use the ‘Ctrl + Shift + V’ to paste only the text, and that will not paste the formatting of the text, including the links, there are certain situations, when we come across documents with a number of links or hyperlinks that we don’t want within the document. Depending upon the size of the document, it can be a painful task to remove each hyperlink individually, but there is a way on both Microsoft Word and Google Docs to remove all the hyperlinks, at once.
The ability to remove all the hyperlinks can come in handy in magical ways when you are dealing with a document, and today, I will talk about, how you can do that, here. I will cover only Microsoft Word and Google Docs, as these are the two most popular word processing programs, however, the process is not going to a lot different in other programs, as well. I will also talk about a way so that Microsoft Word will not consider links or email addresses as hyperlinks, as you type them. So, this tutorial is undoubtedly going to be helpful for you in numerous ways.
So, without any further delay, let’s get started with how you can remove hyperlinks from texts in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
Removing all links in Microsoft Word with a single shortcut
This can come in handy sometimes.
Step 1: Open the file or document on Microsoft Word, and select the complete document or a certain part of the document, from where all the links need to be removed.
Step 2: Now, use the ‘ Ctrl + Shift + F9 ’ to remove all the hyperlinks from the selected part of the document.
Even after you remove the hyperlinks, most of them, which are typically coloured blue, will retain its font colour. However, you can use your favourite font colour, or use any other formatting option now to make those parts of the document look normal again. The bottom line is, the links are now gone from your document.
Prevent automatic hyperlinking on Microsoft Word
Step 1: Open Microsoft Word, click on ‘File’ and then click on ‘Options’ .
Step 2: Under the ‘Proofing’ tab in ‘ Word Options ’, click on ‘ AutoCorrect Options… ’.
Step 3: Click on the ‘AutoFormat As You Type’ tab, and then unmark the option that says ‘ Internet and network paths with hyperlinks ’, and click on ‘OK’ .
This setting will be applicable across Microsoft Word, which means, even if you create new files, and type in links or email IDs, they will not be hyperlinked, as well. So, this setting isn’t file-specific. If you are changing the setting on your office computer for your own convenience, better get a penny for the thoughts from your co-workers.
Removing all links from Google Docs
The ability to remove all the hyperlinks from a selected document isn’t available by default on Google Docs. You have to download an add-on ‘Text Cleaner’ for Google Docs for this purpose.
Step 1: To do that, click on ‘Add-ons’ in the menu bar of Google Docs, and click on ‘ Get add-ons ’.
Step 2: Now, type in ‘ Text Cleaner ’ in the search box, and click on the first link, that I have shown below, in the screenshot.
Step 3: Click on the ‘Install’ button followed by the ‘Continue’ button that appears.
Step 4: Next, you will have to choose the Google account, which will be used to download the Text Cleaner add-on. Just click on the account, if you have multiple accounts. Next, click on ‘Allow’ accept the permissions, Text Cleaner requires, to function properly.
Step 5: Click on ‘Done’ , after the installation is successfully completed.
Step 6: After the installation is complete, open the document to remove all the links. Now, as usual, select the complete document, or the part of the document, from where the links need to be removed. Now, click on ‘ Add-ons ’, and click on ‘ Remove links and underlining ’ under ‘ Text Cleaner ’.
Depending upon the size of the document, the process of removing the links will take some time, and after it is completed, the links, along with the underlines will be removed right away.
Prevent automatic hyperlinking on Google Docs
Step 1: Click on ‘Preferences’ under ‘Tools’ .
Step 2: Unmark the option that says ‘ Automatically detect links ’, and click on ‘OK’ .
Now, the links will no longer be automatically hyperlinked.
So, that was all about how you can prevent hyperlinking of texts while typing, on Microsoft Word and Google Docs, or remove all the hyperlinks, at once. This tutorial can come in handy in magical ways at different times. Do you have anything to say? Feel free to comment on the same below.
Posted on March 10, 2020 by Judy Sanhz Leave a Comment
Deleting a link from Google Docs is easier than it sounds. With a few clicks here and there, you won’t have to deal with them anymore.
How do links appear in your documents? When you copy a text and paste it without removing the formatting, those links will appear. Here’s how you can get rid of them.
Remove All Links by Pasting Without Formatting
Whenever you need to copy text with links, copy the text like you normally would. When it comes to pasting the text, right-click where you want the text to go and move the cursor to click on the Paste without formatting option.
If you prefer, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + V to speed things up.
If you click on the Paste option, the text will be pasted with all the codes the author added, including the links. Any text that is in bold or italics will appears as is.
How to Remove Specific Links from Google Docs
The previously mentioned tip will remove all links from the text you copied. But, if all you want to do is remove specific links, all you have to do is click on that particular link and choose the broken link option.
If you made a mistake and removed the wrong link, click on the back arrow at the top left, and the link will re-appear.
How to Prevent Links from Generating Automatically
Whenever you type an email and a URL, the link is created automatically. To stop this from happening, you’ll need to turn off the Automatic Link Detection option.
To turn this option off, click on the Tools option, and when the new window shows up, uncheck the Automatically detects links option.
How to Change a Link from One Word to Another
In the cases that your files need to have some links, you might need to change the word your link is in. To change the position of your link, you’ll need to:
- Copy the link by clicking on it and choosing the Copy Link option.
- Click on the link once again, but this time click on the Remove Link option.
- Highlight the word where you’ll be placing the link and right-click on it.
- Choose the Link option.
- Paste the link and click on the blue Apply button.
Conclusion
Links are generally useful, but there are times when you can do without them. Are there usually a lot of links in your Google Docs files? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.
Whenever you copy text from the web and paste it into Google Docs, any hyperlinks it contains transfer with it. Here’s how to paste text without hyperlinks or remove links already embedded within a document.
Paste Text into Docs Using Paste without Formatting
The first option to remove hyperlinks is to prevent them from transferring in the first place. Stop the links from entering your file by using the “Paste without Formatting” feature to strip the embedded URL from all formatting as you paste it into your document.
After you select some text that contains a hyperlink or two, fire up a browser, head to your Google Docs homepage, and open a new document.
Click “Edit” from the menu bar and then select “Paste without Formatting.”
Paste without formatting.” width=”650″ height=”426″ src=” onload=”pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);” onerror=”this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);” data-lazy-src=” srcset=”data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7″>
Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V (Windows/Chrome OS) or Cmd+Shift+V (macOS) to accomplish the same “Paste without Formatting” function.
When you select “Paste without Formatting,” Docs strips all formatting—hyperlinks included—the source text had and matches your document’s default font rules.
If you use a different format style for your document than the “Normal Text” Docs chooses, it’s easy to change the default font.
Remove Hyperlinks Already in Your Document
Unfortunately, Google Docs doesn’t natively support the ability to remove multiple hyperlinks all at once. So, you will have to manually unlink each individually. Here’s how.
Fire up a browser and open a Google Docs document that already contains some text with hyperlinks in it.
Click anywhere on the text that contains a hyperlink, and when the dialog box opens, click on the “Unlink” icon.
Repeat this process for each hyperlink you want to remove from your document.
Disable Automatic Link Detection
By default, hyperlinks automatically generate when you type or paste an email or URL into a Google Docs document. However, if you don’t want them inserted automatically, the last thing you can do is disable the automatic detection of links from your document’s preferences.
Although this doesn’t prevent hyperlinks from appearing in your document when pasting text, it will stop email addresses and URL links from showing up when you aren’t expecting them to be there.
Fire up a browser, open a Google Docs file, and on the menu bar, click Tools > Preferences.
Preferences.” width=”650″ height=”503″ src=” onload=”pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);” onerror=”this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);” data-lazy-src=” srcset=”data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7″>
From the list of preferences, uncheck the box next to “Automatically Detect Links” to disable this feature. Click “OK” to return to your document.
Now, when you paste email addresses or URLs into your document, they will no longer automatically appear as a link.
July 13, 2020 By Matt Jacobs
Creating a hyperlink in a Google Docs document provides an easy way for document readers to visit a Web page that is relevant to your content.
Hyperlinks are indicated by a blue underline within the document, making them very easy to identify.
But you may have links in your document that you don’t want or need, and they may exist because you copied content from another location that contained these links. Unwanted links can be confusing for readers, and the link formatting can be distracting.
Fortunately deleting a link in Google Docs can be accomplished with a few simple steps, allowing you to keep the linked text in the document, but removing the ability to click the link, as well as removing the formatting.
How to Remove an Existing Hyperlink in a Google Docs
The steps in this guide were performed in the desktop version of Google Docs.
Step 1: Sign into Google Drive and open the document with the link to delete.
Step 2: Click on the link that you want to delete.
Step 3: Click the Remove link button.
As mentioned earlier, this will remove the link and the blue text/underline formatting associated with that link, while leaving the text that had the link applied to it. Any other formatting applied to the text will remain intact.
If you wish to change the link rather than delete it, there is a pencil icon that appears next to the Remove Link button, which you can click to edit the linked text or the destination of the link itself.
Additional reading
- How to change margins in Google Docs
- How to select all in Google Docs
- How to clear formatting in Google Docs
- How to change a link in Google Docs
- How to make Google Docs landscape
Matt Jacobs has been working as an IT consultant for small businesses since receiving his Master’s degree in 2003. While he still does some consulting work, his primary focus now is on creating technology support content for SupportYourTech.com.
His work can be found on many websites and focuses on topics such as Microsoft Office, Apple devices, Android devices, Photoshop and more.
Posted on August 2, 2019 by Kat Armstrong Leave a Comment
While working in Google Docs, there may come a time when you need to link to a website. Your document can look extremely messy if you just paste a random link in the middle of your sentences or paragraphs. Instead of having these unsightly links everywhere, why not consider using Hyperlinks?
A Hyperlink is the link to the website you are pointing to “hidden” inside of the words you type to describe the site. For instance, if I am talking about how to create an email address, I would likely want to link to Gmail. Instead of having to put into the document (see how yucky that looks?), I would instead type: Be sure to check out what Gmail can do for you. When I insert the Hyperlink, the word Gmail would turn blue by itself and be clickable by anyone reading the document. Pretty cool, eh?
Doing this is not too difficult.
How to Create a Hyperlink in Google Docs
A Hyperlink has two parts to it: the web address that you want to link to and the “display” text that the link is hidden in. In my earlier example, the address would point to Gmail and my display text would be the word Gmail. When you create your Hyperlinks in Google Docs, the choice of links and display text is entirely up to you and your writing style.
The first thing you must do is to go ahead and type your display text and then highlight it:
Now, we need to open the dialogue box to insert the link into. There are two ways to do this. You can use the ”Link” button at the top of the page:
… or, alternatively, you can right-click the highlighted text and then click ”Link” from the pop-out menu:
Once you have clicked, the dialogue box will open. You’ll see your highlighted text at the top (which you can change at this point if you would like to) and then the space to type or paste your web link. You may also notice some suggestions below that link box which you can explore and use or not… it is entirely up to you.
Once you enter the link and are satisfied it is exactly the way you want it, click on that pretty blue ”Apply” button.
Your Hyperlink has now been created! You will notice at first that the link itself appears just below the highlighted text, along with a couple of options. These allow you to make changes if you notice you messed up in the creation process. The first option allows you to copy the link. The second will let you edit it and the final one is to delete the link if you have decided you just do not like it.
To make the link and options go away, click anywhere in your document. You will now only see the blue highlighted word/s… your nice and neat finished product.
Note that any time after you have created the Hyperlink, you can go back and make those changes I just mentioned by highlighting the words again.
Do you have any other types of Google Docs formatting questions for me? I would love to help in any way I can.
It’s possible to add hyperlinks into a lot of different programs in which you might be typing information. Whether you’re sending a text message, working on a spreadsheet, or typing a word document, there is probably a way for you to hyperlink something.
In fact, hyperlinking is so common, that applications like Google Docs will automatically convert anything that they believe should be hyperlinked into a hyperlink. This includes phrases like or . While the intention is often for those types of phrases to be made into links, there are times where it’s unwanted. if you would prefer to manually create hyperlinks in your documents, then the steps below will show you how to change this setting in Google Docs.
How to Stop Google Docs from Automatically Converting URLs to Links
The steps in this article were performed in Google Chrome, but should also be the same for other Web browsers. This change is going to affect the Google Docs application itself, so any future URLs that you type into other documents will also not be converted to hyperlinks.
Step 1: Open Google Drive at and open a Google Docs document.
Step 2: Click the Tools tab at the top of the window.
Step 3: Select the Preferences option at the bottom of the menu.
Step 4: Click the box to the left of Automatically detect hyperlinks to remove the check mark, then click the blue OK button at the bottom of the menu to apply the change.
Do you need to create a PDF file, but you aren’t sure how? Find out how to convert a Google Docs file into a PDF and create the required file format without spending any money.
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Disclaimer: Most of the pages on the internet include affiliate links, including some on this site.