How do I convert a column of text URLs into active hyperlinks in Excel?

Question

I have a column in excel, wherein I have all the website url values. My question is I want to turn the url values to active links. There are about 200 entries in that column

Answer 1

OK, here's a hokey solution, but I just can't figure out how to get Excel to evaluate a column of URLs as hyperlinks in bulk.

1. Create a formula, ="=hyperlink(""" & A1 & """)"
2. Drag down
3. Copy new formula column
4. Paste Special Values-only over the original column
5. Highlight column, click Ctrl-H (to replace), finding and replacing = with = (somehow forces re-evaluation of cells).
6. Cells should now be clickable as hyperlinks. If you want the blue/underline style, then just highlight all cells and choose the Hyperlink style.

The hyperlink style alone won't convert to clickable links, and the "Insert Hyperlink" dialog can't seem to use the text as the address for a bunch of cells in bulk. Aside from that, F2 and Enter through all cells would do it, but that's tedious for a lot of cells.