Knowledge Base

XL97: Unusual Behavior When You Use the HYPERLINK Function

Article ID: 156926

Article Last Modified on 10/19/2000

Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q156926

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel 97, if a formula in a cell contains the HYPERLINK worksheet function, the following behavior may occur:

When the hyperlink that the formula references is not available, and you use the mouse to point to the cell that contains the formula, the pointer becomes a pointing hand. -and-
When the hyperlink is not available, and you click the cell that contains the formula, you receive the error message
Cannot open the specified file.
-and-
When the hyperlink is available, it is not underlined like other hyperlinks.

NOTE: When you click the cell when the hyperlink is available, it functions correctly.

CAUSE

This problem occurs if you nest the HYPERLINK function in an IF function. For example, the problem occurs when you type the following formula into a cell:

   =IF(A1<10,HYPERLINK("http://msnbc.com","Welcome to MSNBC!"),
      "No link!")

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Excel 97, the HYPERLINK worksheet function allows you to create a hyperlink to a World Wide Web page or other Internet resource. The function accepts two arguments, a reference to a location, that is, either a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or a document name; and the text string that appears in the cell.

REFERENCES

For more information about the HYPERLINK function, click the Index tab in Microsoft Excel Help, type the following text

hyperlink

and then double-click the selected text to go to the "HYPERLINK" topic.

Additional query words: XL97 explorer netscape www ftp 8.0

Keywords: kbprb KB156926