How to find hyperlinks in an email?

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I have inadvertently changed the font color of a large email, saved [/u]it, and exited.

The problem is that I have many hyperlinks in that document that are no longer apparent.

Is there a way to open that email, search for those hyperlinks, and when found, change the text’s color to that of normal hyperlink (blue)?

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Hyperlinks are often underlined, so that may be a starting point. Failing that I would view the raw email and search for “<a " or "http://&quot;. Find the matching text before " ” and return to the email and search for the matching text.
Tell us what mail client you use and we can advise how to view the raw mail.

cheers, Paul

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Hi Paul — when I changed the font color, I also removed any/all bold/underline/italics, so if you were to view it, it looks like a pure text email, but it isn’t.

I am using Outlook 2010 x86.

Thanks.

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I think (can’t test it here ’cause I don’t use OL on this machine) if you highlight the entire email (Ctrl A) then right click and select view source, you will be able to see the HTML content.

cheers, Paul

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I think (can’t test it here ’cause I don’t use OL on this machine) if you highlight the entire email (Ctrl A) then right click and select view source, you will be able to see the HTML content.

Good idea, but there isn’t an option to view source viewing an Outlook email. I would surmise, though, that saving the email as an HTML/MHT file would allow me to see that code.

Unfortunately, there are too many hyperlinks to do this manually.

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Is there a way to open that email, search for those hyperlinks, and when found, change the text’s color to that of normal hyperlink (blue)?

I developed and tested this in Outlook 2007. Only tried one example, but it seemed to work in this scenario: forward HTML message, select all and choose a color, then run the macro to de-color the links.

Code:

Sub StripSpansFromLinks()
' Retrieve HTML body for active message
Dim msg As Outlook.MailItem, strBod As String
Set msg = ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
strBod = Replace(msg.HTMLBody, vbCrLf, " ")  ' Convert line breaks to single space
strBod = WildReplace(strBod, "s+", " ")  ' Convert all whitespace to single space
'Debug.Print strBod
'Stop
' Examine links in the HTML body
Dim lngPos As Long, lngPosEnd As Long, strTemp As String
lngPos = 1
Do
    lngPos = InStr(lngPos, strBod, "<a ", vbTextCompare)
    If lngPos = 0 Then Exit Do
    lngPosEnd = InStr(lngPos, strBod, "", vbTextCompare)
    ' Create temp string of the link
    strTemp = Mid(strBod, lngPos, lngPosEnd - lngPos + 4)
    ' Rip out any  and  tags
    strTemp = WildReplace(strTemp, "]*>", "")
    strTemp = WildReplace(strTemp, "", "")
    ' insert modified string back into the body string
    strBod = Left(strBod, lngPos - 1) & strTemp & Mid(strBod, lngPosEnd + 4)
    lngPos = lngPos + 3
Loop
'Debug.Print strBod
'Stop
' Rewrite the HTML body
msg.HTMLBody = strBod
Set msg = Nothing
End Sub

Private Function WildReplace(strExpression As String, strFind As String, _
    strReplace As String, Optional bolReplaceAll As Boolean = True, _
    Optional bolCaseSensitive As Boolean = False) As String
  If (strExpression = vbNullString) Or (strFind = vbNullString) Then
    WildReplace = strExpression
    Exit Function
  End If

  Dim objregexp As Object
  'instantiate regexp object
  Set objregexp = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
  objregexp.IgnoreCase = Not bolCaseSensitive
  objregexp.Global = bolReplaceAll
  ' Pattern syntax: Visual Basic Scripting Edition-Pattern Property
  objregexp.Pattern = strFind
  
  'outer lines temporarily replace the line feeds to avoid the wildcard search tripping on them
  strExpression = Replace(strExpression, vbCrLf, "zxzx")
    strExpression = objregexp.Replace(strExpression, strReplace)
  WildReplace = Replace(strExpression, "zxzx", vbCrLf)
  
  Set objregexp = Nothing
End Function

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I developed and tested this in Outlook 2007. Only tried one example, but it seemed to work in this scenario: forward HTML message, select all and choose a color, then run the macro to de-color the links.

Thanks, jscher2000. Will give it a try during the week and let you know how I made out. Appreciate it.

One thought, though. What do I get by forwarding the email, instead of simply editting it? The email was saved and is in the Drafts folder.

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What do I get by forwarding the email, instead of simply editting it? The email was saved and is in the Drafts folder.

I just needed something to work with. I don’t usually compose lengthy HTML messages.

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I just needed something to work with. I don’t usually compose lengthy HTML messages.

Ah. So I need not do a forward. Gotcha, and thanks.

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This would work to get you back to the original text color with the formatted hyperlinks (in Outlook 2007, so I’m guessing it might be the same in 2010), but you will lose the formatting you applied through out the email. So it may not work for what you need if you are concerned about changing everything back to where it started sans-formatting.

Highlight all the text, go to the Format Text tab, Click on Quick Styles and choose Clear Formatting.

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