Remove the underline from hyperlink text

When you want to include hyperlinks in your presentations, but do not want your audience to know that they are hyperlinks (until you are ready), you can remove the recognizable underline, yet still maintain the link.

In short, you do this by removing the hyperlink from text and instead laying a transparent shape over the text, then assigning the hyperlink to the transparent shape. After you do that, when you're presenting, you'll be able to point at the shape and click it to jump to the link target. Read on for details. 

1. Right-click the hyperlink text, and then click Remove Hyperlink.

2. On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click Shapes, and then under Rectangles, click Rectangle.

3. Drag to draw the rectangle so that it covers the hyperlink text that you want to hide.

4. Right-click the rectangle, and then click Format Shape.

5. In the Format Shape pane, do the following:

   1. Under Fill, click No fill.

   2. Under Line, click No line.

      

6. Click the rectangle shape (but not the text inside of the shape), and then on the Insert tab, in the Links group, click Hyperlink.

7. In the Address box, type the Web address, and then click OK.

8. To test the hyperlink, at the bottom of the slide window, click Slide Show view.

9. Click the text (rectangle) that contains the hyperlink.