E-Mail Hyperlinks in Excel Workbooks

Excel 2000, XP and 2003 have the ability to easily create e-mail hyperlinks in worksheets.  Those you distribute the worksheet to can use these hyperlinks to request additional information or submit comments via e-mail.  The worksheets can be distributed manually or Excel can publish them as Web pages.

Begin with a worksheet you would like to distribute to others.  In our example we are going to assume that we will be distributing a monthly, unaudited income statement to the owners of a closely held business.  In the first part of the example we will assume the worksheet is distributed manually either on disk or as an e-mail attachment.  In the second part of the example we will publish the worksheet as a password protected page on the Internet.

Inserting an e-mail Hyperlink in a Worksheet

The following steps can be used to insert an e-mail hyperlink into an existing worksheet:
Open the file you want the link in.
Type in the text you would like to become a hyperlink.
Place the cursor in the cell containing this text.
Click on the Hyperlink icon in the Standard Toolbar.

Insert e-mail Hyperlink Dialog Box

When the Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens, select the e-mail Address icon on the Link To bar. In the e-mail address text box enter the address to which messages should be sent. Fill in the subject box. Click OK and the text you highlighted before entering the hyperlink dialog box is now an e-mail hyperlink. The color of the hyperlink text will change and it will now be underlined.  If you click on the hyperlink your default e-mail will open a new blank letter with the Send To address and the Subject already filled in.  Note: This procedure requires that you are using a MAPI-compliant e-mail client.  Most e-mail client software packages are MAPI-compliant.

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