One last quickie to round out this issue, then I can send it off.

You know how when you import Word files into InDesign or QuarkXPress, you sometimes get unwanted hyperlinks? Ugly underlined things colored a garish RGB blue? That's because Word is set by default to convert email addresses and URLs into live links, and that's its built-in Character Style for them.

I'm not going to get into the details of how to fix these in the layout program (or turn off the Word default) because I've already written them up in a post to my InDesignSecrets.com blog:
http://indesignsecrets.com/cleaning-up-hyperlinks-from-word-text.php

What I wanted to call out in this quickie was a tip provided by one of the blog readers in their comment to the story. Since then it's been one of the most popular tips I've mentioned during training sessions.

Kazimierz Kapusniak said you can quickly and easily clear out all the hyperlink formatting in the Word document itself, before you import it. Open the Word doc in Word, select all the text (Command/Control-A), then press Command/Control-6. [DesignGeek readers wrote in to note that you have to use the "6" from the top row, not from the number pad. Thanks, guys!]

All the hyperlink formatting disappears, but the linked text remains. No other formatting is removed.

Unbelievable. Why couldn't I have learned this, like, ten years ago!