Cannot locate internet server or proxy server - links to internet will not work in Word for Mac

Have you tried copying the link? Then opening another browser, such as FireFox or Chrome, and tried going to the link. 

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The questions, discussions, opinions, replies & answers I create, are solely mine and mine alone and do not reflect upon my position as a Community Moderator.

I did try the link with Chrome open.  Same results. 

I copied and pasted the link into the URL filed for the hyperlink.  I also retyped it.  Neither way works.  But it does work from a PC.  

What's the link?

It's possible that they are using a PC only link.  And if they are, they are breaking W3C Standards they final agreed to follow years ago

Let me see if I can use any web browser to get in.  

_________

Disclaimer:

The questions, discussions, opinions, replies & answers I create, are solely mine and mine alone and do not reflect upon my position as a Community Moderator.

Word simply hands the link to Mac OS and then Mac OS opens the web page in whatever web browser you have specified as the default browser for your Mac.

Try opening the link in a different web browser, but first make sure your Mac's internet connection is functioning.

Guess I'm late to the party here - but I have this problem as well.  Per the MS auto update for office 2011 - I am on the latest version of Office 2011 for Mac, macOS Sierra version 10.12.3, Safari 10.0.3.

I'm using Norton Internet Security - with application and connection controls active, but Word is permitted.  No indication in the logs that Word ever attempted to access the internet.

I inserted the link using <cmd>K, manually typed the link used manually in Safari.  The link worked in Safari, did not work from Word.

I copied the link from Safari and inserted it into the "Link to:" field in the Edit Hyperlink form - same result.

I copied the link from the Edit Hyperlink form, pasted it into the Safari address - worked fine.  Did the same for Chrome - worked fine.

Is there some other setting or filter that I can check?

Thanks in advance

====  Some additional info here, it appears that the issue might be more site related than setup ???  ====

links that are not working from within the Word Document:

https://www.lastpass.com/business/

https://liebsoft.com/products/enterprise_random_password_manager/

https://www.securitycoverage.com/solutions/tech-home/password-genie/

https://thycotic.com/products/secret-server/

links that are working from within the Word Document:

when the links work, Word shows that it is "...preparing to load this document."

https://www.manageengine.com/products/passwordmanagerpro/download.html#licensing

https://www.dashlane.com/business

https://keepersecurity.com/business.html

https://www.passpack.com/about/

https://www.logmeonce.com

http://enterprise.roboform.com/solutions/everywhere

I might be finding a pattern here, too, using Microsoft Excel on Mac. Most hyperlinks appropriately encoded do work. But, there's some links that are apparently not working because somewhere along the way, they're being blocked. Here are links that resulted in "Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server." error:

http://lastpass.com

http://similarweb.com

http://compete.com

And, http://alexa.com works.. what do you make of this?

Tried the links above as of March 27, 2017 and all work the last link the company Complete.com has gone Bankrupt. There is parking  or placeholder site there

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Disclaimer:

The questions, discussions, opinions, replies & answers I create, are solely mine and mine alone and do not reflect upon my position as a Community Moderator.

I have the same problem with a link to my LinkedIn URL. If I click the link when the word doc is open in Word 2011, I receive the "Unable to open [URL]" error. However, if I save the resume as a PDF, the link does work. The link also works if I open the Word doc in Microsoft Word 2013 on a PC running Windows 7.

I haven't experienced problems with any other links, though I've only experimented with a few.

Because the link works on a PC, I suspect this is a bug caused by some incompatibility between Office 2011 and the Mac OS. I recall that all links worked when I was using OS 10.7 Lion, but it seems that something got broken at some point. (I'm currently on 10.10.5 Yosemite.)

Because only some URLs are affected, it suggests that something about those URLs is incompatible with either Office 2011 or the Mac OS. Since LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, I would expect them to be compatible.