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Underlining a blank space in a Web address

How do I underline a blank space in a website address? The underline is there on Word for Mac, but when I paste in the address on Firefox, the underline disappears.

How do I underline a blank space in a website address? The underline is there on Word for Mac, but when I paste in the address on Firefox, the underline disappears.

All Replies (8)

Hi donfaulkner, Firefox shouldn't remove an underline (underscore character => _ ) from a URL, but if a blank space is underlined in Word because the whole link is underlined, then it may show up as a blank space in Firefox.

Is the problem with pasting a link into an email compose window or similar online editor? Usually there's a button to create a hyperlink, so you can select the entire URL and then click the button so the site knows to include those additional words after the space.

Or is it some other context?

The problem is I don't know how to create an underlined space in a URL when I am typing it directly into Firefox. How do I do it? And is there a way to speak directly with a human being employed by Firefox?

Hmm, what do you mean by "speak"? There is no official phone support. How do you feel about chat?

Can you give an example of a URL that has a space in it?

Note: using a URL in your post will delay its appearance while it passes through the spam link moderation queue. It will appear eventually.

https://2020censusautomatedclassroomtraining.com/podcast nrfu.

The space between "podcast" and "nrfu" needs to be underlined (underscored?), but I can't find any keyboard command to do so. I can underline the space in Word for Mac, but when I copy and paste the address into Firefox, the space is left, but the underline is gone (as above).

Chat is fine, but not until 10:00 AM Mountain time tomorrow. Now it's time to walk the dogs and put my farm to bed.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. Have a good evening.

Don Faulkner

Hi Don! On my PC the underscore is the right shift button + the button to the left of it, but I have a Swedish keyboard, with a minus and an underscore on it. If I copy a link I usually copy with the menu button and then choose "Copy link". Hope this helped you.

Not seeing the underscore merely means that the space character isn't recognized as being part of the link (i.e. it is a separator). You would have to encode spaces as %20 (encodeURIComponent()) like you would get if you copy the URL from the location bar.

HTML code that allow the enclose a link in quotes would work.

  • <a href="https://2020censusautomatedclassroomtraining.com/podcast nrfu">link</a>

It is not recommended to include spaces in a link and better is to use the underscore instead especially in cases where you want to copy/paste a link.

I fear that if you type in a _ for the space then the server might not be able to find the linked item.

What I would look at is where you are pasting the URL: how does that editor let you create a link that encompasses the entire URL including the wording after the space. That might be selecting it and clicking a link button, or there might be another method like using %20 for the space.

(Instead of %20 some sites use a + for spaces in a URL, like search engines, so there some inconsistency.)

And by the way here are some good reasons not to use Apple products: https://stallman.org/apple.html