Making links clickable

[Marina]

When inserting a link in a post, it will not be clickable if it does not have the “http://” or “https://” part of it in front of the “www.” part of the link. If you don't add the "http://" or "https://" bit at the beginning, a link won’t be clickable and will look like this: www.mstrust.org.uk.

 

If you copy and paste a whole block of plain text that contains a link somewhere in it, it won't be clickable, regardless of whether the link has the “http://” or “https://” part, and you'll have to make it clickable. Finding the link and hitting the spacebar after the end of the link will make it clickable (as long as it has “http://“ or “https://“ in it), but also see the last part of this page if the link is in the middle of a sentence.

 

To make a link clickable:

 

Copy and Paste from your browser’s address bar:

 

If you copy a link from the address bar in your browser, it should automatically have “http://” or “https://” in front of the “www” part. Then all you need to do is paste the link and it will be clickable. This is the easiest way.

 

Copy from elsewhere and manually add “http://” or “https://”:

 

If you’re copying the link from elsewhere, and it doesn’t have “http://“ or “https://“ in front of the “www” part, then you will need to type in “http://“ or “https://“ (without the quotes) in front of the “www” part of it.

 

Both these methods will embed the link as below.

 

There are two ways to display a clickable link:

 

AS AN EMBEDDED LINK (this is the default)

 

Having pasted or typed your link, it will automatically embed as below. It’s best for links that aren’t in the middle of a sentence, but which are placed on a separate line on its own.

 

Home | MS Trust

WWW.MSTRUST.ORG.UK

---

Home

 

You might have to wait a few seconds for it to show, though.

 

On occasion, if a site is “http” and not “https”, it might not become embedded. Some links may not show a header image, and some (like above) may not have a description (normally shows as 3 lines).

 

Links that were added to older posts before July 2018 won’t be embedded, this was a new feature added in July 2018.

AS AN ORDINARY LINK

 

If you don’t want your link to be embedded, eg: because it needs to be in the middle of a sentence:

 

- Before pasting or typing your link: click on the “link” button on the editor’s toolbar, and enter the link in the top “URL” box.

 

You can tell when a link is clickable as it will be in colour and not black: https://www.mstrust.org.uk/

 

You can also make plain text links or words in a sentence into a clickable link - eg: the MS Trust - by highlighting the plaint text link or word(s) first, then clicking on the “link” button on the editor’s toolbar, and entering the link in the top “URL” box. Don't forget the “http/https” part of it! If you do forget the “http/https” part when entering the URL in the URL box, it will convert it to a clickable link, but only as “http” and not as “https”; whether it'll work will depend on how that site has set itself up when it comes to “http/https”.

 

- After pasting or typing your link: it will become embedded as described above. To remove the embedding and make it a normal link, don’t type anything or hit your spacebar, instead either:

• Click the “Undo” button on the editor’s toolbar, or use your keyboard’s shortcut for Undo

or

• A black bar will appear at the bottom of the editor with:

“Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead”. Click “Display as a link instead”.

 

 

If you typed something or hit the spacebar before doing the above, you will need to delete the embedded link and start again, which could be a bit tricky, by making sure your cursor is immediately before or after it and hitting the delete or backspace key, or by hovering over the embedded link and hitting your delete key.

 

See also:

 

Edited 13 Jan 2019, 2:18 pm by Marina
Updated