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tamarawill24's avatar
tamarawill24
Explorer | Level 3
4 years ago

How Do I Prevent Dropbox Paper from Converting Plain Text URLs into Hyperlinks?

Hi Everyone:

 

I was using a different file hosting service. However, I experienced recurring issues and decided to try Dropbox.

 

That service also has document-editing functionality which allowed me to create and edit documents online. I copied the text content from those online documents and pasted into new Dropbox Paper documents.

 

However, I noticed that Dropbox converted my plain text URLs into hyperlinks which shows previews of those webpages directly in my document. I was trying to convert those hyperlinks back to plain text URLs but am not able to do so. Each time I click the link it loads the webpage in a new browser tab but I do not want this to happen. I know that in Word, you can remove hyperlinks to prevent them from being clickable links and instead keep them as text. How can I fix this in Dropbox Paper?

 

How can I prevent Dropbox Paper from converting my text URLS into hyperlinks with webpage previews in the future? I prefer to keep them as text links so that I can copy or download the content to use in my other documents.

 

Thank you.

 

  • Hey tamarawill24, thanks for your post about Dropbox Paper!

    At the moment, with the way Paper works, the URLs will appear as hyperlinks with previews of the linked site.

    However, you're welcome to post an idea about this on our Paper idea board, for other users to upvote.

    Let me know if you have any questions.
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    Hey tamarawill24, thanks for your post about Dropbox Paper!

    At the moment, with the way Paper works, the URLs will appear as hyperlinks with previews of the linked site.

    However, you're welcome to post an idea about this on our Paper idea board, for other users to upvote.

    Let me know if you have any questions.
    • tamarawill24's avatar
      tamarawill24
      Explorer | Level 3

      Hi Hannah:

       

      Thank you for your quick response and for the clarification that Dropbox automatically converts all text links to hyperlinks with previews of the linked site.

       

      I prefer to keep the text only (non-clickable) links or URLs so this means that Dropbox's document editing feature is not the right fit for me. Hence, I will continue to search for another document editing service that suits my needs. However, I can continue to use the Dropbox's storage service.

       

      Thanks for your suggestion to post or promote my idea in Paper idea board. I will do so soon.

       

      Best Regards

      • Hannah's avatar
        Hannah
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        I understand, Tamara, and thanks for getting back to me.

        If you ever need anything else, make sure to give us a shout.

        Have a wonderful day!
    • norabrowndesign's avatar
      norabrowndesign
      New member | Level 2

      I also find this very annoying, and don't want my collaborators to have to learn to use ``` backticks just to stop urls from turning into link previews. For now I will have to go back to a shared Google Doc.

  • yaoxiao6's avatar
    yaoxiao6
    New member | Level 2

    I found out one way. You may put your link inside a code block (whether in-line or paragraph). You can do so with two ` www.your_link.com ` for in-line or ``` www.your_link.com ``` for paragraph format. For example:

     

    www.your_link.com

     Hope this is helpful

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