Automatic links

[JKinATL 5]

Hello. Whenever I type a website address or something like "evernote.com" it automatically creates a link. I just want it to be a plain text without a link. I know I can point to it and click edit to remove the link but every time I edit the sentence (or even place the cursor there in that sentence) it recreates the link. Is there a way to prevent it from automatically creating links in the first place? Or to prevent it from recreating a link once I've removed an automatically created link? Thanks for any help.

[gazumped 11,698]

Hi.  Always helpful to know what device / OS / Evernote version you're using.  And for interest in this case - can you explain more please about why is it so important to have text, and not a link?

[agsteele 2,952]

2 hours ago, JKinATL said:

Is there a way to prevent it from automatically creating links in the first place? Or to prevent it from recreating a link once I've removed an automatically created link

The quick answer is no.

[Boot17 1,467]

4 hours ago, JKinATL said:

I know I can point to it and click edit to remove the link

You can also press the backspace key right after it creates a link for it and it will remove the link. Not quite what you are asking for, but a little faster than pointing and clicking.

4 hours ago, JKinATL said:

but every time I edit the sentence (or even place the cursor there in that sentence) it recreates the link

I can't reproduce this. The only time I see it recreate the link for me is when I got to the end of the text of the URL and press 'space' or 'return'. (This is on Mac Desktop right now anyway.)

[JKinATL 5]

23 hours ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  Always helpful to know what device / OS / Evernote version you're using.  And for interest in this case - can you explain more please about why is it so important to have text, and not a link?

Sorry for not including this info in my initial post, but here it is: device - laptop with Windows 11 Home 22H2 on Evernote Web. The reason why I didn't want a link is that when I'm looking at my note on a phone and scrolling through it my finger often accidentally clicks on the links when I don't want that.

[JKinATL 5]

19 hours ago, Boot17 said:

You can also press the backspace key right after it creates a link for it and it will remove the link. Not quite what you are asking for, but a little faster than pointing and clicking.

I can't reproduce this. The only time I see it recreate the link for me is when I got to the end of the text of the URL and press 'space' or 'return'. (This is on Mac Desktop right now anyway.)

Thanks for the tip about using the backspace key instead of pointing and clicking to remove a link. Also, I think you're right - it might be recreating a link only when editing (pressing space or return) and not when just placing a cursor in the sentence (I might have created a space when trying to use my finger on the touchscreen to place cursor there).

[Blizzard Joe 14]

One other option to prevent text from being converted into a link is to make it inline code via backticks.  So when typing/pasting a url you would start and end with ` like: `www.google.com` .  Note that it will change its formatting so if that is not desirable this may not be a workable work around.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,977]

Personally, I wish it were easier to create a link, e.g., by putting punctuation after a pasted-in URL (you may have noticed that having a period, comma, etc., after the URL keeps it from making a link). But I understand about not want to accidentally activate it.

[MichaelvT 18]

I believe the alternative is to use the undo button (ctrl + z) immediately after the website is typed and the link created. I believe it removes the link immediately but does not remove the text (yet). Not 100% sure but I just tried it in a mobile device and that works. 

This also should work when pasting a website into Evernote, but for that I usually paste in plain text  (ctrl + shift +v in windows). This is something I use frequently because I work on windows 10 on my work laptop and it uses Microsoft Edge. When pasting a website there it automatically creates a a link but uses the website header as text. 
Hope this helps. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,977]

Ctrl+Z works in the Web client and the Windows desktop app, and has the advantage of letting a person keep typing. Good call! (Of course, I still wish it would make the link when typing punctuation immediately after the paste, not only when typing Space or Enter.)

[Boot17 1,467]

On 3/17/2023 at 11:25 PM, MichaelvT said:

I believe the alternative is to use the undo button (ctrl + z) immediately after the website is typed and the link created.

The backspace key will also do the same thing here as Ctrl-Z if pressed immediately after the link is created.

[JKinATL 5]

Thank you to everyone who responded - your replies and suggestions, tips, explanations, etc. have been very helpful and showed me different ways of achieving what I asked for 🤝