All links open with word

You can create a link while working in Word or while working in another application. You
have already seen several ways to embed objects:

• On the Insert tab, in the Text group, choose the Object:

  

  In the list choose the Object to open the Object dialog box.

  • Choose the Create New tab:

  

  • Or choose the Create From File tab:

  
• On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click the Paste:

  

  In the list choose Paste Special…:

  

• Drag-and-Drop

The difference is that you must click the Link to File check box or the Paste Link option
button, or you select Link Here from the drag-and-drop pop-up menu.

Word can update links in two ways, automatically and manually:

• With automatic links, Word updates the links whenever you open the destination file and whenever the
  source information changes while the Word document is open.

  To specify how links are updated, follow these steps:

    1.   Choose Linked Worksheet Object -> Links… in the popup menu to
  display the Links dialog box:

  

    2.   The Links dialog box lists all of the links in the active Word
  document. Select one or more. To select multiple links, click once on the first link, press
  Ctrl, and then click once on each of the other links that you want to edit. If you have
  several links and want to select them all, click once on the top link, press Shift, and then
  click once on the last link in the list.

  

    3.   Choose Automatic for automatic links, or choose Manual
  for manual links. You can specify different options for different links.

• With manual links, Word updates the links only when you decide to update them.
  There are two methods to update links manually. The simplest is to position the cursor somewhere in
  the linked object and then press F9. The other is to choose Linked Worksheet Object ->
  Links….
  Using Linked Worksheet Object -> Links… may be quicker, however, if you have several links
  in your document because this method enables you to see a list of all links. On the other hand, you
  can also press Ctrl+A to select everything in your document and then press F9.
  (Unfortunately, Ctrl+A doesn’t select links inside headers, footers, and comments, although
  it’s rare that linked objects are placed in these areas.) This updates all fields in your document,
  not just linked objects.

The default setting is to update all links automatically when the information in the source file changes,
but you can specify either method for any link.

You can lock and unlock a link in the Links dialog box. However,
you can also lock a link by selecting a link and pressing Ctrl+F11; unlock the link by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+F11.

Rather than locking a link, why not set the link to Manual and then just don’t update it-to
ensure that you don’t accidentally manually update it. If, for instance, you press Ctrl+A to
select the entire document and then press F9 to update the table of contents, index, and
cross-references, you are also updating unlocked manual links.

See also this tip in French:
Création, mise à jour, verrouillage et déverrouillage de liens.

Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Updating Automatic Links.

You already know that Word allows you to include many different elements in your documents, such as pieces of Excel worksheets, sounds, graphics, and other objects. You may even know that you can establish active links with these objects so that any changes in the objects can be reflected in your document, as well. You may not know, however, that you can control whether Word automatically updates links when you open a document. You control this feature in this manner:

1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. At the left side of the dialog box click Advanced.
3. Scroll through the available options until you see the General section. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The advanced options of the Word Options dialog box.

4. Set the Update Automatic Links At Open check box as you desire.
5. Click OK.

Why would you not want to automatically update links when you open a document? The chief reason is time—if your document contains quite a few links, or if the source of those links is hard to reach (perhaps through a network), then opening your document can be extremely slow. To speed up opening your document, turn off automatic updating and things should be fine. Of course, if you want to make sure you have the latest updates of your linked objects, you will need to update them manually, or simply turn on the option and reopen your document.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

I really found the answer of @user228546 helpful, as I could not get my version of Microsoft Word (2013) to show me the options in the accepted answer. However, it’s a little brief, and it requires a good knowledge of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to get everything to work.

Here’s a slightly modified answer that could help some people who don’t know so much about VBA.

You’ll need to get to the VBA editor using Alt+F11. Use «Insert» -> «Module» up at the top, which will get you an editor window.

Get the Link Addresses in a New Document

I’m actually going to save the extracted hyperlinks into a new document, which I’ll then save.

Type (or copy/paste) the following into the editor window.

Sub GetLinksInNewDoc()
'
' Finds all hyperlinks (even with strange formats,
' as long as they're active)
' and displays them in a new document.
'
    ' Declare the types of our variables
    Dim doc As Document
    Dim newDoc As Document
    Dim hlink As Hyperlink

    ' Use the script on the current document
    Set doc = ActiveDocument
    ' Open a new document to put the link addresses into
    Set newDoc = Documents.Add

    ' Loop through all the hyperlinks using the iterable hlink variable
    With doc
        For Each hlink In .Hyperlinks
            ' Switch into the new document
            newDoc.Activate

            ' Put the Hyperlink Address in the new document
            With Selection
                .InsertAfter hlink.Address & " " & hlink.SubAddress
                .InsertAfter vbNewLine
            End With
        Next hlink
    End With

    Set doc = Nothing
    Set newDoc = Nothing
End Sub

Make sure that your Document with the hyperlinks is the last Microsoft Word document you had highlighted. Save your code. Either click on the green arrow to run, or from the upper toolbar select «Run» -> «Run Sub/UserForm», or press F5

Note that you might get a «grey ghost» of the text that will eventually be in the document — something like

Get the Link Addresses in a TXT File

Now, if you actually wanted to save the URLs to a TXT file, which is what got me to this question, you can use the same procedure, except your code should be

Sub GetLinksInTxtFile()
'
' Finds all hyperlinks (even with strange formats,
' as long as they're active)
' and outputs them to a TXT file.
' The TXT file will be written in the same directory
' as the original document
'
    ' Declare the types of our variables
    Dim doc As Document
    Dim hlink As Hyperlink

    ' Use the script on the current document
    Set doc = ActiveDocument

    ' Get a text file ready to which you will write the URLs
    ' Some old-school BASIC
    Open doc.Path & "the_urls.txt" For Output As #1

    ' Loop through all the hyperlinks using the iterable hlink variable
    With doc
        For Each hlink In .Hyperlinks
            Print #1, hlink.Address & " " & hlink.SubAddress
        Next hlink
    End With

    Close #1
    Set doc = Nothing
End Sub

I hope it helps.

Source for my understanding, outline of copying into new document.

Another related source

Source for writing to a text file (which is what I originally came searching for)