How to delete hyperlinks from a worksheet without affecting the cell styles using C#?

23 Jul 20253 minutes to read

You can remove hyperlinks from an Excel worksheet without altering the cell formatting using HyperLinks property of the IWorksheet interface. Below are the code examples in C# (cross-platform and Windows-specific) and VB.NET to demonstrate how to do this.

C# [Cross-platform]

using (ExcelEngine excelEngine = new ExcelEngine())
{
    IApplication application = excelEngine.Excel;
    application.DefaultVersion = ExcelVersion.Xlsx;
    FileStream inputStream = new FileStream("Data/InputTemplate.xlsx", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
    IWorkbook workbook = application.Workbooks.Open(inputStream);
    IWorksheet worksheet = workbook.Worksheets[0];
    // Remove first hyperlink without affecting cell styles
    HyperLinksCollection hyperlink = worksheet.HyperLinks as HyperLinksCollection;
    hyperlink.Remove(hyperlink[0] as HyperLinkImpl);
    FileStream outputStream = new FileStream("Output/Output.xlsx", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
    workbook.SaveAs(outputStream);
    workbook.Close();
    excelEngine.Dispose();
}

C# [Windows-specific]

using (ExcelEngine engine = new ExcelEngine())
{
    IApplication application = engine.Excel;
    IWorkbook workbook = application.Workbooks.Open("InputTemplate.xlsx");
    IWorksheet worksheet = workbook.Worksheets[0];
    // Remove first hyperlink without affecting cell styles
    HyperLinksCollection hyperlink = worksheet.HyperLinks as HyperLinksCollection;
    hyperlink.Remove(hyperlink[0] as HyperLinkImpl);
    workbook.SaveAs("Output.xlsx");    
   workbook.Close();
}

VB.NET [Windows-specific]

Using engine As New ExcelEngine()
    Dim application As IApplication = engine.Excel
    Dim workbook As IWorkbook = application.Workbooks.Open("InputTemplate.xlsx")
    Dim worksheet As IWorksheet = workbook.Worksheets(0)
    ' Remove first hyperlink without affecting cell style
    Dim hyperlink As HyperLinksCollection = TryCast(worksheet.HyperLinks, HyperLinksCollection)
    hyperlink.Remove(TryCast(hyperlink(0), HyperLinkImpl))
    Using outputStream As New FileStream("Output.xlsx", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write)
        workbook.SaveAs(outputStream)
    End Using
    workbook.Close()
End Using

A complete working example to delete hyperlinks from an Excel worksheet without altering cell styles is available on this GitHub page.