If you've ever pasted a URL into an email and wished it looked more polished, you're not alone. Most professionals want their emails to look clean and branded — but the default behavior in Gmail, Outlook, and Slack is to just... show the full URL.
That means your recipient sees something like this:
https://www.canva.com/design/DAF82jdK3kP/view?utm_content=DAF82jdK3kP&utm_campaign=share
Instead of something like this:
View Our Private Events Brochure (clickable link)
The second version looks professional. The first one looks like spam.
Here's how to create clickable hyperlinks in each platform — and a shortcut that saves you from doing it manually every time.
How to Create a Hyperlink in Gmail
- Open Gmail and start composing an email
- Type out the text you want to turn into a link (e.g., "View the Proposal")
- Highlight that text with your cursor
- Click the link icon in the bottom toolbar (it looks like a chain link) — or press Ctrl+K (Windows) / Cmd+K (Mac)
- Paste your URL into the "Web address" field
- Click OK
That's it. Your text is now a clickable hyperlink.
The problem: This takes 5-6 steps every single time. If you send the same links regularly — brochures, booking pages, pricing sheets, calendar links — you're repeating this process dozens of times a week.
How to Create a Hyperlink in Outlook
- Type the text you want to link
- Highlight it
- Click Insert > Link in the ribbon menu — or press Ctrl+K
- Paste the URL and click OK
Same idea, same number of steps, same repetition problem.
How to Create a Hyperlink in Slack
- Type your message
- Highlight the text you want to link
- Press Ctrl+Shift+U (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+U (Mac)
- Paste the URL and hit Save
Alternatively, you can use Slack's markdown-style formatting: type [display text](URL) and Slack will convert it when you send.
The Faster Way: Save Your Links Once, Paste Forever
The manual process works fine if you're creating a one-off link. But if you're like most professionals, you share the same 5-15 links over and over:
- Client brochures
- Booking or scheduling pages
- Pricing documents
- Case studies or portfolios
- Proposal decks
Doing the highlight-click-paste dance for each of those, in every email, every day, adds up fast.
Tools like Plinq solve this by letting you save your commonly-used links with custom display text. When you need one, you click it once — it copies to your clipboard as a formatted hyperlink. Then you just paste into Gmail, Outlook, Slack, or any email client. The recipient sees clean anchor text with the URL embedded behind it.
No highlighting. No link button. No pasting URLs into dialog boxes. Just copy and paste.
If you're curious about the difference between branded hyperlinks and link shorteners, we cover that in detail.
When Does This Matter Most?
Branded hyperlinks matter most when you're communicating with:
- Prospective clients — first impressions count, and a messy URL doesn't help
- High-value leads — if you're sending a quote or proposal, you want every detail polished
- Repeat contacts — if you're sending the same link for the tenth time, you should have a faster process
The Bottom Line
Creating hyperlinks manually works. It's just slow and repetitive. If you send links in emails occasionally, the built-in tools in Gmail, Outlook, and Slack are fine. But if sharing links is a daily part of your workflow, a tool that saves and formats them for you will save meaningful time — and make every email look more professional.
Try Plinq free at getplinq.com