My blue pet peeve

Imagine that you have a brochure or newsletter article in front of you, and some of the type is printed in blue. Now take your index finger, and tap it repeatedly. Did anything happen? The object may have developed a slight dimple and you received some kind of repetitive stress injury, but did anything else happen?

Microsoft Word is a dandy piece of software that has many helpful tricks. One of those tricks is automatically turning website and email addresses into hyperlinks and giving them a pretty blue color. When you exchange documents online, that can be handy, because you can use your mouse (or finger on a tablet) to connect with that link.

But far too many people incorporate that hyperlink into printed documents. And no matter how many times I pound them with my finger or my mouse, the promised website or email screen never appears.

When you develop anything to be read offline, skip the hyperlinks. They serve no purpose other than to make it look like you don’t know better. And you really do … don’t you?

1 thought on “My blue pet peeve”

  1. Ha ha. Also love how many articles have Blue words with definitions or descriptions added in. Great point Scott.

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