Copying Links in Multiple Formats in Firefox

We previously wrote about a Firefox extension that allows you to copy HTML links in one go from a webpage (Copying Text From a Webpage as an HTML Link in Firefox). We have discovered another extension called CoLT, which stands for Copy Link Text. This extension allows you to copy webpage links in multiple formats, including custom formats, providing more options.

Download CoLT from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1812.

CoLT adds two menu items to your browser’s context menu, both of which are only visible when right-clicking on a webpage.

The Copy Link Text menu item copies a hyperlink’s associated text to the clipboard.

The Copy Link Text and Location menu item copies both the hyperlink’s text and URL to the clipboard in the format you choose. The following are the available formats with examples of what would be copied to the clipboard.

Copy Format	Example
HTML Link	<a href=”http://helpdeskgeek.com”>Help Desk Geek</a>
Plain Text	Help Desk Geek – http://helpdeskgeek.com
BBCode	[url=http://helpdeskgeek.com]Help Desk Geek[/url]
FuseTalk	[L=Help Desk Geek]http://helpdeskgeek.com[/L]
Wikipedia	[http://helpdeskgeek.com/ Help Desk Geek]

As of version 2.4.0, you can copy a hyperlink and it’s associated text as a rich text formatted link. You can also set up custom formats.

Setting Options

To set the options for CoLT, select Add-ons from the Tools menu.

The Add-ons dialog box displays. Make sure the Extensions button is selected at the top of the window.

Click the Options button to display the CoLT Options dialog box.

On this dialog box, you can specify which menu items to display on the main pop-up context menu and customize which items display on the Custom Format menu (which is a submenu of both the Copy Link Text and Location and Copy Page Title and Location options) and in which order.

You can also set up new custom formats and add them to the Custom Format menu.

Setting Up a Custom Format

If you want a custom format for the text copied from a link on a webpage, access the CoLT Options dialog box as described above. Click the Add button in the Custom Format Menu Items box. The Add Custom Format dialog box displays.

Specify a name for your format in the Menu Label edit box. This is the name you will see on the pop-up menu. Use the Variables listed in the chart to assemble your format. In the example above, we set up a format for pasting a link as Rich Text. This is useful for pasting links into word processors like Word or HTML editors like KompoZer.

When you select the Use Rich Text HTML Link Format check box, the Format edit box is automatically filled in and becomes uneditable.

Click OK to accept your new format and return to the CoLT Options dialog box.

Rearranging Custom Format Menu Items

You can specify the order of the menu items on the Custom Format menu. Select the item to be moved and click the Move Up button or the Move Down button to select its location.

To add a separator, click New Separator.

NOTE: The new separator is added to the bottom of the list of custom formats automatically. Select it and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to place it where you want.

Click OK to close the CoLT Options dialog box.

Using CoLT

For this example, we are going to copy a link on a webpage as a rich text link and paste it into Word.

To copy the link, right click on the link, select Copy Link Text and Location As from the popup menu, and then select Rich Text from the submenu.

Go to a new or existing document in Word and press Ctrl+V. You get a nicely formatted link automatically.

You can also copy a link to the current webpage the same way as copying links on a webpage. If you are on a webpage and you want to copy and paste the link to that webpage with the title of the webpage in a nice Rich Text link, right-click anywhere on a webpage that is not a hyperlink.

The menu option that was Copy Link Text and Location As is now the Copy Page Title and Location As option.

The same Custom Format options are available as mentioned above. Paste the link the same way mentioned above.

If you copy and paste a lot of links, this extension can save you a lot of time going back and forth between your browser and another program to copy the text and the URL separately.

by Lori Kaufman