Gmail makes URLs in text into blue links. How do I stop this?

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Ryan Wenzel
Ryan Wenzel
Ancient Membership First Comment Facilitator Level 1
in Blackbaud Luminate Online® & Blackbaud TeamRaiser® Discussions

Hi all,

I just designed new e-mail stationery for my organization, and it looks great in pretty much every e-mail client. However, in Gmail, any time I include a URL in my e-mail text (e.g., "visit abronsartscenter.org for more info"), it makes the URL a link in the default blue and underlined. This color really clashes with the template I've made. Is there any way to get around it? Inline style sheets don't seem to be helping. I've included a screenshot (the link is supposed to be red); here's the coding for it:

<P style="MARGIN: 1em 0px" align=right><FONT style="COLOR: #ffffff; FONT-FAMILY: arial" face=arial><STRONG>466 GRAND STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10002 | 212.598.0400<BR><A style="COLOR: #cc3333; TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.abronsartscenter.org/" target=_blank>ABRONSARTSCENTER.ORG</A></STRONG></FONT></P>

Is there a way to get around this, or do I have to resign myself to Gmail's defaults on this?

Ryan

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  • Alicia Searfoss
    Alicia Searfoss
    Ancient Membership 100 Comments 25 Likes Photogenic

    Hi Ryan,

    Unfortunately, we all have to deal with this.  Gmail is just one email app that strips out the CSS. There are several threads in the community, but there's one I liked at http://community.customer.convio.com/message/4065#4065.  There are several articles on the web too that discuss how Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, etc. handle CSS.

    If you added another font tag in front of the text for the link it should work, something like:

    <P style="MARGIN: 1em 0px" align=right><FONT style="COLOR: #ffffff; FONT-FAMILY: arial" face=arial><STRONG>466 GRAND STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10002 | 212.598.0400<BR><A style="COLOR: #cc3333; TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.abronsartscenter.org/" target=_blank><FONT color=#cc3333>ABRONSARTSCENTER.ORG</font></A></STRONG></FONT></P>

    I'm sure there will be others who might have even better suggestions. 

    Good luck!

    Alicia

  • Ryan Wenzel
    Ryan Wenzel
    Ancient Membership First Comment Facilitator Level 1
    Alicia Searfoss:

    Hi Ryan,

    Unfortunately, we all have to deal with this.  Gmail is just one email app that strips out the CSS. There are several threads in the community, but there's one I liked at http://community.customer.convio.com/message/4065#4065.  There are several articles on the web too that discuss how Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, etc. handle CSS.

    If you added another font tag in front of the text for the link it should work, something like:

    <P style="MARGIN: 1em 0px" align=right><FONT style="COLOR: #ffffff; FONT-FAMILY: arial" face=arial><STRONG>466 GRAND STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10002 | 212.598.0400<BR><A style="COLOR: #cc3333; TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://www.abronsartscenter.org/" target=_blank><FONT color=#cc3333>ABRONSARTSCENTER.ORG</font></A></STRONG></FONT></P>

    I'm sure there will be others who might have even better suggestions. 

    Good luck!

    Alicia

    I tried adding the stylized <FONT> tag to no avail...  Hmmm.

    All of the other links look fine--they're in #cc3333. It's just the URLs in the test that are being switched to the default blue with underlining. I'm having the same problem in this e-mail with this sentence (linked part in brackets): "Visit for more information."

    Is there any way to stylize these links without changing the text or putting spaces around the periods in the URLs? I fear that might look silly.

  • Jim Drey
    Jim Drey
    Ancient Membership 10 Comments Photogenic Facilitator Level 3
    Ryan Wenzel:

    I tried adding the stylized <FONT> tag to no avail...  Hmmm.

    All of the other links look fine--they're in #cc3333. It's just the URLs in the test that are being switched to the default blue with underlining. I'm having the same problem in this e-mail with this sentence (linked part in brackets): "Visit for more information."

    Is there any way to stylize these links without changing the text or putting spaces around the periods in the URLs? I fear that might look silly.

    I've found that the only reliable way to get the the clients I test to display 95%+ of my emails the way I want is to use the style attribute to apply CSS on pretty much every tag. You also need valid HTML. Convio's summer upgrade promises to generate valid code with the WYSIWYG editor in CRM (but not CMS), but considering Convio has done such a stupendously poor job on this front thus far, I'll believe it when I see it.

    I test with Outlook 2003, Gmail, Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail, and Thunderbird.

    This should force clients to display your link correctly (I hope!). It is valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional.



    <p style="margin: 1em 0px; text-align: right; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #ffffff; font-weight: bold;">466 GRAND STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10002 | 212.598.0400<br />
     <a href="http://www.abronsartscenter.org/" style="color: #cc3333; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">ABRONSARTSCENTER.ORG</a></p>

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