No more clumsy file paths! Email “Live” Hyperlinks from Office

Here’s a shortcut I use that impresses people at the office.

When collaborating on an Office document, people often either send an attachment of the file or send a “dead” (as in, un-linked) filepath.

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The first isn’t too helpful because that attachment will be a local file, not the actual collaborative document.  The second is just a pain.  Who wants to click through Windows Explorer to find a file?

Here’s a much simpler way.  You can paste a “live” hyperlink into your email.

In Outlook, there is a way to do this straight from the home ribbon.  If your office uses another application for email, here is a quick workaround.

In your Office document (I’m using Excel as an example), select the “File” tab on the Home Ribbon.

At the upper left you will see an abbreviated file path named “Notes.”  Click on that.  You will see an option:  “Copy link to clipboard.”

Paste this into your email.

Depending on which service you have, you should get a hyperlinked file path.  If it does not come through with a link, you can always just copy and paste this into the Windows Explorer search box.

No more clumsy attachment or impromptu file path names!