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How to Remove Hyperlinks from your Paper

Shane
Updated

If you are seeing blue underlined hyperlinks in the reference section of your APA 7 paper, this is by design.

Section 9.35 of the APA 7 Publication Manual states:

  • Present both DOIs and URLs as hyperlinks (i.e., beginning with "http://" or "https://"). Because a hyperlink leads readers directly to the content, it is not necessary to include the words "Retrieved from" or "Accessed from" before a DOI or URL.
  • It is acceptable to use either the default display settings for hyperlinks in your word-processing program (e.g., usually blue font, underlined) or plain text that is not underlined.
  • Links should be live if the work is to be published or read online.

Since APA 7 requires live hyperlinks, PERRLA automatically formats them as such. By default, they will be presented with blue underlined font.

If you need the hyperlinks to appear as plain text instead, this can be done with a few extra steps.

Note: These instructions require that you remove the content controls that place the references into the paper. It is advised that you do not edit the hyperlinks until you are completely finished with your paper. More information about PERRLA's interaction with Word's content controls can be found here: How PERRLA interacts with Word Content Controls (Add-in)

Instructions for both PERRLA for Word and PERRLA Online are included below.

PERRLA for Word

Removing a hyperlink from the reference page

  1. Click the Settings button in the PERRLA ribbon. 
  2. On the Settings screen, scroll down and click Use Advanced Edit Mode. 
  3. On the Advanced Edit Mode screen, scroll down and click the Use Advanced Edit Mode button. 
  4. On the next screen, click Yes - Use Advanced Edit Mode. 
  5. Go to Word's Home tab. 
  6. Open Word's Styles Pane. 
  7. In the reference page, highlight the hyperlink you'd like to edit. 
  8. Under Apply a style in the Styles Pane, choose APA. 
  9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for each hyperlink you'd like to edit. 

This will apply regular black font with no underline to the hyperlink. The hyperlink will remain live and can still be clicked to navigate to the link.

Removing a hyperlink from the paper's body

  1. Right-click the hyperlink and choose Remove Content Control (if available). 
  2. Right-click the hyperlink and choose Hyperlink > Remove Hyperlink. 

This will turn the hyperlink into plain text. The hyperlink will no longer be live and cannot be clicked to navigate to the link.

PERRLA Online

Removing a hyperlink from the reference page

  1. Go to the Export/Print tab of your finished paper. 
  2. Click Download Simplified Word file (.docx). 
  3. Open the downloaded document in Word. 
  4. Go to Word's Home tab. 
  5. Open Word's Styles Pane. 
  6. In the reference page, highlight the hyperlink you'd like to edit. 
  7. Under Apply a style in the Styles Pane, choose APA. 
  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each hyperlink you'd like to edit. 

This will apply regular black font with no underline to the hyperlink. The hyperlink will remain live and can still be clicked to navigate to the link.

Removing a hyperlink from the paper's body

Since the paper was downloaded as a Simplified Word file, there are no content controls within the document. Simply right-click the hyperlink and choose Hyperlink > Remove Hyperlink.

This will turn the hyperlink into plain text. The hyperlink will no longer be live and cannot be clicked to navigate to the link.

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