Selecting just the text if the entire text block is also a link

May 27, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: marksch

Sometimes but increasingly often, a text link isn't just one simple clickable word within a larger text passage but instead an entire block of text inside a table or frame. Although it is convenient that you can click just anywhere in a text area to open the associated link, it is very frustrating that selecting the text to copy it may be very difficult.

To be able to copy the text of a linked text, just hold the option key before dragging the mouse cursor. Clicking with the option key down will immediately download the link to your disk, but dragging will let you select the text of the link without actually opening that link.

I couldn't find any similar hints. This works with Firefox 3.5.5 and possibly other versions.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. I used Firefox 3.6.3. It also seemed to work in Chrome (5.0.x) but not in Safari (4.0.5) for me.]

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