Tip of the week # 492
29 August 2016


Set the default colour of a hyperlink (Microsoft Outlook) *

A hyperlink is text or a graphic that points to another item, such as a file on your shared drive or a Web page on either the internet or intranet. Clicking on a hyperlink allows you to "jump" to the associated item. The default colour of hyperlinks is blue and the link is underlined, but you might want to change that to match, say, colours you use in your signature. You can obviously manually change it using the Format Painter, but why not change the default colour and formatting of your links.

Here's how:

  1. Draft a message as normal. (CTRL + N, anyone?)
  2. Type a hyperlink, e.g. www.roem.co.uk.
  3. Put your cursor in the hyperlink and press SHIFT + F1.
  4. In the Reveal Formatting pane click on the Character Style link for the selected text.
  5. In the Style box ensure Hyperlink is selected. (If it isn't, you might have put your cursor in the wrong spot. Oh, and it doesn't work if you put your cursor in a hyperlink that is part of your Outlook signature.)
  6. Click on the Modify button.
  7. Click the Underline button if you want to switch off the line under the hyperlink. (Perhaps you prefer to have it bold instead?)
  8. Select your preferred colour. (Mine is orange.)
  9. Click on the New documents based on this template radio button.
  10. Click OK.
  11. Click Apply.
  12. Close the message. No need to save it.

By the way, this method also works in Microsoft Word. Simply skip the first two steps.


* Unless stated otherwise, these tips were written for Microsoft Office 2010.