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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Gmail's Shortcut for Inserting Hyperlinks

Less than 2% of the Gmail users have enabled keyboard shortcuts and actually use them, but that doesn't mean Google shouldn't improve them. Many people complained that Gmail's rich text editor doesn't have a shortcut for inserting hyperlinks and now it's available: Ctrl+K (or Cmd-K if you use a Mac).


The same shortcut is also used in Outlook, Microsoft Word, Google Docs and other apps. "Just select any text, and then press the Ctrl and K keys at the same time. A dialogue box opens where you can type a link," informs the Microsoft Word blog.

I wonder why Google doesn't offer the option to use the top search result for the text you've selected or at least pick one of the top results from the "edit link" box.

{ Thanks, Cougar. }

16 comments:

  1. Acutally I hate this feature, to be honest.

    Ctrl+K in Firefox is the search shortcut, and now always when I write a mail and want to look up something, I unintendedly fire up the link dialogue and have to use the mouse to get to the search box...

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    Replies
    1. This! I came to say this!
      It sucks! Though you can get to the search box doing it once again but the "Edit link" box sits still there...

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    2. I second your complaint. It really drives me crazy, when Gmail overdrives shortcut used by Firefox.

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    3. See if Ctrl-L (plus optionally a question mark) might be of any use: it should act the same as Ctrl-K used to.

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    4. Ctrl-L is the address shortcut.

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    5. Please allow me to disable this! I use this shortcut constantly to get to the search box in Firefox.

      I guess I'll just disable Gmail shortcuts all together. Add me to the 98%! ;)

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  2. Thanks to Google and especially Gmail team that developed this feature, i can breath now that i can use one more short key while using Gmail :)

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  3. You should fix the link from ‘Less than 2%’ words. Now it’s http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2012/01/www.webmonkey.com/2010/03/making-contact-with-mr-gmail/ — but should be http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/03/making-contact-with-mr-gmail/

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  4. Finally! When was this added to Gmail? I love the shortcut in Google Docs and kept filing a "bug" about it missing in Gmail.

    Thanks!

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  5. Today, it has become usual to add link to the explanation in the form of text while emailing it to someone and this shortcut is like it make this process very quick.

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  6. Awesome. I havent use Shortcut but now i would like to try all and all. Thanks.

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  7. I didn't even know they had keyboard shortcuts. Thought Google was a bit backward for that!

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  8. Fabulous Key board shortcut. I always directly insert links into mail but now i know how to do it.

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  9. Sorry, but nobody will use these except for those that already knew HTML.

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