Extracting a URL from hyperlinked text in Excel cell

Question

I have a table full of Hyperlinked text in excel, so it's basically a bunch of names but when I click on one, it takes me to some URL in my default browser.

So I am extracting text from this excel table in my program, but the value I get when I extract from these hyperlink cells is that of the string inside, when I want the URL the string is linked to in the excel file.

So I'm thinking there are two ways to do this. Either I can convert all the hyperlinked text in the excel file to the corresponding URLs, or I can use C# to somehow extract the URL value from the cell and not the text.

I don't know how to do either of these things, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

C# code so far:

Excel.ApplicationClass excelApp = new Excel.ApplicationClass();

//excelApp.Visible = true;

Excel.Workbook excelWorkbook = 
excelApp.Workbooks.Open("C:\\Users\\use\\Desktop\\list.xls",
0, false, 5, "", "",false, Excel.XlPlatform.xlWindows, "", 
true, false, 0, true, false, false);

Excel.Sheets excelSheets = excelWorkbook.Worksheets;

string currentSheet = "Sheet1";
Excel.Worksheet xlws = (Excel.Worksheet)excelSheets.get_Item(currentSheet);

string myString = ((Excel.Range)xlws.Cells[2, 1]).Value.ToString();

As for the excel file, it's just one long row of names hyperlinked. For instance cell A2 would contain the text:

Yummy cookie recipe

And I want to extract the string:

http://allrecipes.com//Recipes/desserts/cookies/Main.aspx

Solution 1

You could use a vba macro:

Hit Alt+F11 to open the VBA editor and paste in the following:

Function URL(rg As Range) As String
  Dim Hyper As Hyperlink
  Set Hyper = rg.Hyperlinks.Item(1)
  URL = Hyper.Address
End Function

And then you can use it in your Worksheet, like this:

=URL(B4)

Solution 2

In your code just add

string myString = ((Excel.Range)xlws.Cells[2, 1]).Cells.Hyperlinks[1].Address;

I obviously recommend doing some checks before accessing the "Hyperlinks" property.

Solution 3

VBA function:

1. Hit Alt+F11 (Opens Visual Basic Editor)
2. Click on Insert -> Module (adds a module to your excel file)
3. Paste the code below for the function of GETURL
4. Hit Alt+Q (Closes the Visual Basic Editor)

Now use the =GETURL(cell) to get the URL
Example: =GETURL(A1) will return the URL for the Hyperlink displayed in cell A1

Function GETURL(HyperlinkCell As Range)
    GETURL = HyperlinkCell.Hyperlinks(1).Address
End Function

Source

Solution 4

Use Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) to open Excel workbook and extract all hyperlinks.

---

I put a hyperlink into A1 of Sheet1 in Book1.xlsx: text = "example.com, address = "http://www.example.com"

_Application app = null;
try
{
    app = new Application();

    string path = @"c:\temp\Book1.xlsx";
    var workbook = app.Workbooks.Open(path, 0, true, 5, "", "", true, XlPlatform.xlWindows, "\t", false, false, 0, true, 1, 0);

    var sheets = workbook.Worksheets;
    var sheet = (Worksheet)sheets.get_Item("Sheet1");

    var range = sheet.get_Range("A1", "A1");
    var hyperlinks = range.Cells.Hyperlinks.OfType<Hyperlink>();

    foreach (var h in hyperlinks)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("text: {0}, address: {1}", h.TextToDisplay, h.Address);
    }
}
finally
{
    if (app != null)
        app.Quit();
}

Output:

text: example.com, address: http://www.example.com/

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Comments

[AJ_]

Thanks a lot, I just used this to extract all the links to a different part of the table using my program, and then I copy/pasted them to a new excel table. Messy, but the end result is exactly what I wanted.

[AJ_]

I appreciate the answer but the syntax was not working on my system and I got the job done more on the excel side of things using my C# program just a little.

[abatishchev]

@AJ: What version of Excel and VSTO do you use? I used the latest, .NET 4.0/VS 2010/Excel 14

[AJ_]

I'm using excel 2003. The program is actually all done now, and is generating a database. But since there are 2700 entries, it might take around 7 to 10 hours to finish >_>

[HaveSpacesuit]

This is the best answer from a coding perspective. It does not require modifying the excel worksheet. I found it necessary to change xlws.Cells to xlws.Sheets[1].Cells.

[Timothy Gonzalez]

How do you get the string URL from the hyperlinked column?