This tutorial shows how to change the style of hyperlinks in Microsoft Word. [Typewriter sounds] Hello, my name is Erin. I’m a technical writer and editor who shares step-by-step software tutorials and writing tips for the real world on this channel and on my blog at erinwrightwriting.com. In a recent tutorial called “How to Create External Hyperlinks in Microsoft Word,” we created hyperlinks to external files, websites, and email addresses. In today’s tutorial, we are going to change the style of unfollowed hyperlinks and followed hyperlinks in Microsoft Word. Style includes the font, font size, font color, and emphasis, which is bold font, italics, and underlining. Please note that these steps apply to all the hyperlinks in your Word document. If you want to change the style of an individual hyperlink, select it, select the Home tab, and then use the options in the Font group to change the style as you would regular text. I’ll be using Word for Microsoft 365. The steps are the same for Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010. However, your interface might look slightly different in those older versions of the software. Unfollowed links are links that have not been selected or clicked by the reader. Word’s default style for unfollowed links is normally blue with underlining. The default font will match the surrounding text. However, your default may be different if you are using a custom template. To change the style of unfollowed links, select the Home tab. And then place your cursor inside an existing unfollowed link. Next, select the dialog box launcher in the Styles group. When the Styles pane appeared, Hyperlink should be preselected. Now, select the menu arrow to the right of Hyperlink. Note that this menu arrow won’t appear until you hover your cursor of this area. Next, select Modify from the drop-down menu. When the Modify Style dialog box appears, you can select new choices from the formatting section. We’ve got font, font size, emphasis, which is bold, italic, and underlining, and font color. [Upbeat background music] After you’ve made your choices, select the OK button to close the Modify Style dialog box. Followed by the X to close the Styles pane. Your unfollowed hyperlinks should be formatted with your new style choices. Followed links are links that have been selected (or clicked) by the reader. Remember that in Word, we usually have to press the Control key while clicking the link. Word’s default style for followed links is normally purple with underlining. The default font will match the surrounding text. As with unfollowed links, your default may be different if you are using a custom template. To change the style of followed links, select the Home tab in the ribbon. And then select the dialog box launcher in the Styles group. Next, select the Manage Styles button in the Styles pane. When the Manage Styles dialog box appears, select Alphabetical from the Sort Order menu. Then, select FollowedHyperlink from the Select a style to edit menu. Now, select the Modify button. And once again select new style choices from the formatting section in the Modify Style dialog box. [Upbeat background music] When you’re finished, select the OK button to close the Modify Style dialog box. Followed by the OK button to close the Manage Styles dialog box. Finally, select the X to close the Styles pane. Your followed hyperlinks should be formatted with your new style choices. As always, save your file to save your changes. I have created many other videos about Microsoft Word, including “How to Create Custom Bullets in Microsoft Word” and “How to Modify the Style of Footnotes and Endnotes in Microsoft Word.” Please see the complete list in the playlist titled “How to Use Microsoft Word,” which is linked in the description box below. The companion blog post for this video showing all the steps we just performed appears on erinwrightwriting.com, which is also linked below. Feel free to leave me a comment if there’s a specific topic related to Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat, or Google Docs that you would like me to talk about in the future. And please subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss future tutorials and give this video a thumbs-up if you found it helpful. Thank you so much for watching! [Typewriter sounds]
