How to Fix Broken Links in Documents with ReplaceMagic

Once you have scanned your documents and identified the broken links, fixing them with ReplaceMagic is a straightforward search-and-replace operation. This guide covers the most common scenarios with concrete examples.

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Scenario 1 — Server Rename or Server Migration

You moved documents from one server to another and kept the same folder structure. The old server name — for example \\Server123 — must be replaced with the new server name, for example \\ServerABC. Enter the old name as the search string and the new name as the replacement string:

ReplaceMagic will find every hyperlink, OLE link, VBA reference and link source that contains \\Server123 and update it to \\ServerABC — across all selected document areas in one processing pass.

Scenario 2 — Folder Structure Change

You reorganised your folder hierarchy by inserting new intermediate folders. For example, a path that was \\ServerABC\Reporting\201805\Something is now \\ServerABC\Reporting\Finance\201805\Something. In the Search & Replace form you enter the old partial path as the search string and the new partial path as the replacement:

Because ReplaceMagic replaces substrings, you only need to enter the portion of the path that changed — it will match and update every link in every document that contains that path segment.

Scenario 3 — SharePoint Online Migration

You migrated documents from SharePoint on-premises to SharePoint Online. The old base URL was https://mycompany and the new URL is https://mycompany.sharepoint.com. Configure ReplaceMagic as follows:

ReplaceMagic will update all embedded links — hyperlinks, OLE links, link sources and any URL references in VBA code — to point to the new SharePoint Online address.

Beyond the search and replacement strings, you also need to specify which document areas to process. ReplaceMagic supports hyperlinks, OLE objects, link sources, formulas, text body, headers, footers and VBA code. You can also enable automatic backup of all or only modified documents, and toggle case-sensitive matching, whole-word matching or regular expressions.

General Tips for Any Replacement Run

• Always run in Preview mode first — review the proposed changes in the results grid before committing anything to disk.
• Use multiple search/replace pairs to cover all path variations in one run. For example, if files moved from two different old server names, add both as separate rows in the Search & Replace form.
• Enable automatic backup if this is your first run on a set of documents — ReplaceMagic can back up all found documents or only the ones it modifies.
• After executing, re-scan the same locations to verify all links are now valid. Export a verification report for project sign-off.
• For large runs, start with a small test batch of 10–20 documents to validate your replacement strings before processing the full library.

Which Document Areas to Target

• Hyperlinks only: fastest option — repairs URL and file-path links found in the hyperlinks grid.
• All areas at once: covers hyperlinks, OLE links, link sources, VBA code, headers, footers and the text body in a single pass. Recommended for most migration scenarios.

Tip: for most migration scenarios, targeting all areas ensures nothing is missed — the performance difference versus hyperlinks-only is minimal on modern hardware.

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