MS Word VBA - Remove Cross Reference Links

Those who use MS Word extensively would likely have come across docs that use the cross-reference link feature.

And sometimes, due to the document passing through many hands, and when it finally comes to you, you find that the cross-reference links are all in a mess, sometimes with Error! messages here and there.

Someone came to find me the other day, and his question was - Could you help me remove the cross-reference links, just the links, but retain the words?

Ok, so I searched the web, and saw a seemingly nifty solution: Ctrl+A, and then Ctrl+Shift+F9

We happily used this, only to find out moments later that the references for all the Figure and Table Captions were all gone as well! This meant that we are no longer able to create a List of Tables/Figures, and that if more tables and figures are to be added, we have to MANUALLY update all the table and figure numbers. Imagine the nightmare with over 100 of them, each. That's a total of more than 200. Gosh.

In desperation, I sought a solution via VBA. After much trial and error, I managed to come up with this. May this help anyone who needs it.

Sub RemoveCrossRefLink()

  Dim objDoc As Document

  Dim objFld As Field

  Dim sFldStr As String

  Dim i As Long, lFldStart As Long

  Set objDoc = ActiveDocument

  ' Loop thru fields in the doc

  For Each objFld In objDoc.Fields

     If objFld.Type = wdFieldRef Then

        objFld.Select

        Selection.Fields.Unlink

        objFld.Update

     End If

  Next objFld

End Sub