Email tip: auto-linking paths containing spaces in Outlook

I frequently get emails containing links to file shares on various servers. Most people just grab the path from windows explorer and paste it into the email which is a shame, because it ends up auto-linking only the first part of the path. For example, “\\server\share with space in the name” auto-links “\\server\share” only.

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Tip: if you surround the path with angle brackets (“<>”) it’ll link the whole thing. Typing it in, pasting, whatever, just get the path between the greater-than/less-than characters and when you type a whitespace/carriage return character Outlook will auto-link the path for you.

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It’s one of those time savers that add up over time to give you back a few minutes of your life per day.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under misc, tips and tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Email tip: auto-linking paths containing spaces in Outlook”

  1. Jeff Moser Says:
    December 14th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    Alternatively, if you have Path Copy installed, you just right click on the file in explorer and click “Copy Path => Copy Internet Path” and it will copy to the clipboard the escaped URI.

    More details at: http://www.moserware.com/2007/11/accidence-improvements-ninotech-path.html