applying hyperlink styles in footnotes and endnotes

Hello,
We have a large number of documents that contain URLs in the footnotes and endnotes. We would like to convert them all to actual clickable hyperlinks, formatted with the hyperlink style. This is absurdly easy to do in the main text with the AutoFormat method, but apparently that method can't be used in footnotes and endnotes! The URLs all begin with the standard h t t p (without the spaces, thanks spam guards) but they are not formatted in any other consistent manner. The URLs are surrounded by other text, so it's not just hyperlinks within each note.

I found a potential starting point in the "Solved: Make all URLs if footnotes clickable?" thread (can't post a link), but the implementation is fairly complicated, requires that footnotes all be converted to endnotes, and documents a case where URLs are all formatted with brackets, making them easier to identify.

Any suggestions?

You can't use autoformat in the notes themselves, but you can copy the notes to a document, format them there then copy them back again. The following should work

Code:

---

Option Explicit

Sub LinkNotes()
Dim oDoc As Document
Dim oTemp As Document
Dim oNote As Range
Dim oFN As Footnote
Dim oEN As EndNote
Dim oRng As Range
    Set oDoc = ActiveDocument
    oDoc.Save
    Set oTemp = Documents.Add(Template:=oDoc.FullName, Visible:=False)
    For Each oFN In oDoc.Footnotes
        Set oNote = oFN.Range
        Set oRng = oTemp.Range
        oRng.FormattedText = oNote.FormattedText
        oRng.Style = "Footnote Text"
        Options.AutoFormatReplaceHyperlinks = True
        oRng.AutoFormat
        oRng.End = oRng.End - 1
        oNote.FormattedText = oRng.FormattedText
    Next oFN
    For Each oEN In oDoc.Endnotes
        Set oNote = oEN.Range
        Set oRng = oTemp.Range
        oRng.FormattedText = oNote.FormattedText
        oRng.Style = "Footnote Text"
        Options.AutoFormatReplaceHyperlinks = True
        oRng.AutoFormat
        oRng.End = oRng.End - 1
        oNote.FormattedText = oRng.FormattedText
    Next oEN
    oTemp.Close savechanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges
lbl_Exit:
    Set oEN = Nothing
    Set oFN = Nothing
    Set oDoc = Nothing
    Set oTemp = Nothing
    Set oRng = Nothing
    Set oNote = Nothing
    Exit Sub
End Sub

---

With a few small modifications to that code you should also be able to use it with http://www.gmayor.com/document_batch_processes.htm as a custom process to enable you to batch process your documents.

Code:

---

Option Explicit

Function LinkNotes(oDoc As Document) As Boolean
Dim oTemp As Document
Dim oNote As Range
Dim oFN As Footnote
Dim oEN As EndNote
Dim oRng As Range
    On Error GoTo err_Handler
    Set oTemp = Documents.Add(Template:=oDoc.FullName, Visible:=False)
    For Each oFN In oDoc.Footnotes
        Set oNote = oFN.Range
        Set oRng = oTemp.Range
        oRng.FormattedText = oNote.FormattedText
        oRng.Style = "Footnote Text"
        Options.AutoFormatReplaceHyperlinks = True
        oRng.AutoFormat
        oRng.End = oRng.End - 1
        oNote.FormattedText = oRng.FormattedText
    Next oFN
    For Each oEN In oDoc.Endnotes
        Set oNote = oEN.Range
        Set oRng = oTemp.Range
        oRng.FormattedText = oNote.FormattedText
        oRng.Style = "Footnote Text"
        Options.AutoFormatReplaceHyperlinks = True
        oRng.AutoFormat
        oRng.End = oRng.End - 1
        oNote.FormattedText = oRng.FormattedText
    Next oEN
    oTemp.Close savechanges:=wdDoNotSaveChanges
    LinkNotes = True
lbl_Exit:
    Set oEN = Nothing
    Set oFN = Nothing
    Set oDoc = Nothing
    Set oTemp = Nothing
    Set oRng = Nothing
    Set oNote = Nothing
    Exit Function
err_Handler:
    LinkNotes = False
    Resume lbl_Exit
End Function

---

On further reflection, if you are planning to use the second suggestion with the batch process, don't set oDoc to Nothing in the cleanup section at the end of the function.

I have prepared a web page that covers the process and includes some modifications to the code

http://www.gmayor.com/add_hyperlinks_to_footnotes.htm

Thank you for your thorough replies! I'll try implementing this soon and let you know how it goes. It is such a complicated solution to what I would have thought was a simple fix. I also thought of using a regular expression to scour the entire document but couldn't get the patterns to match (I'll post on that issue when I get a moment).

OK, that was much easier to implement than I anticipated and it worked beautifully. We use a number of custom styles in endnotes and footnotes and they were all preserved throughout the process. Thank you so much for your help.