Inserting hyperlink

  • Thread starter Brooks Parsons, Jr.
  • Start date
B

Brooks Parsons, Jr.

There appears to be no way to insert a hyperlink in an Entourage e-mail. Is
this just me, am I overlooking something obvious or is it not doable?

Brooks
 
M

Mickey Stevens

You can type a link in the format <http://www.mactopia.com/>

For messages you send in plain text format, the link will not be encoded in
any special way. In that case it is up to the receiving client to make the
link clickable or not.

For messages you send in HTML format (Format > HTML), the link text will
automatically be converted to an <A> tag to ensure the link is clickable on
the receiving end.

If you mean that you want to choose your own text that people click to open
links (sometimes called display text), you are correct that Entourage does
not offer that feature. In that case, you'll need Paul Berkowitz's "Make
Hyperlinks" script.
<http://homepage.mac.com/berkowit28/>

Make sure to get the "X" version if you're running Entourage X or 2004, or
the "2001" version if you're running Entourage 2001.
 
C

Craig Deutsch

Brooks, I've experienced the same thing. And as a former heavy duty Outlook
user for my previous company, I miss these features greatly.

Anyway, if you type a hyperlink while composing a message in Entourage, that
hyperlink:

(a) *will not* show up as a hyperlink as you type it (such as it does in
Outlook);
(b) *will* show up in the recipient's email as such (though I haven't tested
this with other Entourage-based recipients)
(c) *will* show up in the saved message (in your Entourage SENT email box).
(d) *won't* show up as a hyperlink in an email you send to yourself and
which Entourage renders in your In Box.

Go figure.

Test this and you'll see. I sent an email from my cable provider account to
the same account. No hyperlink. Then I sent an email with a hyperlink to
my Yahoo! account. The Yahoo! Mail item reflected the hyperlink.

I use HTML mode but even plain text should do this properly.

Also missing in Entourage is the ability to insert a hyperlink with another
(alias) name, i.e., the link might be http://www.mylink.com and you assign
it to show up in the email text as "Click here." This, IMO, would be an
outstanding addition to Entourage and is one example of flexibility and
expanded features that is available to Windows Outlook users but not
available to the Mac platform for whatever reason.

In addition to a very annoying bug that has to do with rendering field data
after viewing an HTML-rendered message, it *appears* to me that several nice
and genuinely useful features available to Outlook users are simply not
available in Entourage. When it's things as basic as hyperlinks showing up
as you type as well as that hyperlink showing up in emails you send to
yourself or anyone else, IMO there's some rather serious design deficiency
that wasn't addressed. Or was it -- and ignored because "Mac users simply
won't need those kinds of things?" I've heard that argument before, too.

Entourage is fundamentally a good program -- albeit with some fundamentally
inexcusable flaws. I remain optimistic that Microsoft will address these
things in an upcoming major point release.

Craig
 
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