This is a brilliant feature. Often unknown. It is really very simple. Hyperlink usually refers to an external file or web page. But it need not. It can also refer to a part of the current document – provided we can identify the parts. This humble icon packs so much power – we have no idea what we have been missing. I myself learnt so much WHILE writing this article!
Contents
General Rule – Place in this document
All Insert Hyperlink dialogs across Office products have Place in This Document option. Depending upon the product, the ways of identifying various places differ.
Word has Heading Styles and Bookmarks. Excel has named ranges and sheet names. PowerPoint has slide titles and Custom Shows (no Section names yet).
Of course the common thing across ALL types of hyperlinks is that there is an address to jump to and the text or caption which is shown as the link.
Word: Heading Styles and Bookmarks
If you have used styles, the topic hierarchy will appear. Just choose the desired item. Obviously, this type of cross-reference takes you to the beginning of the topic.
If you want to hyperlink to some text within a paragraph with no heading style applied, you must first select that area – Insert a Bookmark and then refer to the bookmark.
Try it out. Very simple but extremely good.
Works in OUTLOOK as well
Very useful for handling long mail responses. If you put a sort of a Table of Contents in the beginning of the mail reply, people will read long responses. Review – Table of Contents option is NOT available in Outlook. But we can always create our own by using heading styles and hyperlinks as shown above.
Excel – Sheets and Named Ranges
Of course Excel is more structured. So Place in This Document is either a sheet name or a defined name. Table names DO NOT WORK. Only manually defined names. Using this feature, it is a good idea to create a Table of Contents for complex Excel workbooks. This reduces mistakes and simplifies navigation (Read: How to create Table of Contents in Excel)
PowerPoint – Slides and Custom Shows
Hyperlinking to slides is commonly used. But also remember that there is a much more powerful option called Hyperlinking to Custom Shows. Create a custom show first and then link to it – you then get a very powerful option – Show and Return. This option is NOT available if you hyperlink to a slide.
Using Custom Shows, you can create a common menu and show sub-sections based upon menu selection. When the topic related slides are finished, it comes back to the main menu. This is a great way to create interactive presentations without writing a single line of code!
(Read: Create interactive presentation in few minutes).
OneNote
How can I forget OneNote. To start with, it offers you the regular web page or file links. But it also offers links to other notebooks and sections and pages.
Compared to other tools, OneNote has a very ad-hoc structure. No formal slides, pages, grid, shapes – it can be all of them and none of them. Therefore, OneNote allows links to be created for any paragraph. And that link can then be pasted anywhere else. Right click on any paragraph, picture, audio or video and choose Copy Link to Paragraph.
Now you can move to any other place within OneNote and choose Paste. In short, every text object inside OneNote is like an implicit bookmark! Amazing stuff.
OneNote links work across products and across OneDrive
Yes. That is another pinnacle of product design. Copying a link from any item in OneNote and pasting it into another document (Word, for example), the link still works (provided you have access to the notebook).
It is like reverse paste link – simplicity redefined.
The sad part is – hardly anybody has even noticed the power – leave alone exploiting it to their advantage 
.
NEVER MIND. Now that you know it – use it and share it!
Visio
Visio is a shape based application. Therefore, it offers a hyperlink to a particular page and / or shape on the page.
Project
Of course every task in a project is generally linked to one or more tasks. So for MS Project links is the life-blood. That linkage is managed using the CTRL F2 or Link Tasks option.
But it does have the traditional Insert Hyperlink option as well. Place in this document option has interesting options – unique to Project – Views and Reports.
InfoPath
A brilliant form designer. It offers Hyperlinks of a different kind.
The address as well as the caption can be fixed or variable – coming from some type of data source. Amazing stuff.
