The connection of virtual terminals is a main point in the secondary design procedure of the smart substation. By analysis of the data format and naming convention of the virtual terminals, a method for automatically connecting the virtual terminals based on the key-character matching is proposed. First, a template file of connected virtual terminals are set up; then, by the key-character matching, the virtual terminals in the connection-waiting file are made consistent with the congenerous ones in the template file in terms of their positions. Using this method, this paper automatically connects most virtual terminals with various models and various manufacturers. For a few virtual terminals that can’t be automatically connected and manual connection is adopted through narrowing the range of choice. The proposed method can alleviate work load and improve the design efficiency and quality.