Need to change the link font color in Notes

After using a fairly decent Notes app for several years, I decided to ditch it after a recent update managed to delete a bunch of notes as well as wrongly arbitrarily reassign them to various unrelated folders. The dev hasn't seen fit to help. So I decided to move everything into Apple's Notes since it had some review praise and it works between MacOS and iOS.

All started well with several hundred copied over until today when I copied a number that included links. Oh crap! I simply cannot read the links due to the extremely insensitive use of a very low contrast color - yellow perhaps? Now understand that I have decent vision - 20/20 corrected from a slight farsightedness and I don't have color blindness but trying to read the characters in a link in Notes is pure torture. Sorry for the hyperbole but it's true.

I've increased the display's contrast using the Accessibility System Pref, which really doesn't help, and I can't find anything else that alleviate the problem.

Is there any way to change this? I'm familiar with the Terminal so if there is a means to do this via Terminal, that would be a godsend.

We all seem to dislike the legacy blue or purple link colors but in most cases we've been able to alter them. However, in my worst nightmares I can't imagine what doofus at Apple decided that no contrast is the way to show a link. Not to mention the visually-impaired QA group that went ahead and signed off on this.

thanks!

-Tod

Edit: I also opened the Format > Font > Show Fonts, then highlighted a link. The text color icon at the top of the fonts table changed to mimic the yellow color of the link. Tried to change it there with no luck. Whose bright idea was it to limit user choices, especially those that are hard-wired into the OS?

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11), 10GB SDRAM 740 GB fusion drive

Posted on Apr 22, 2016 3:28 PM

32 replies

ncdancer

Level 1

14 points

Jul 27, 2017 12:50 PM in response to dy.goldfeder

dy.goldfeder wrote:

Why is not valid, the problem is you can't read the link because of the color, and with this fix you can easily use it as a link too.

dadnukum is correct, this is not a valid workaround because you are making a clickable hyperlink into non-clickable text, the beauty of clickable links are that you don't have to copy them and then paste them; but you do have a point that your workaround makes them readable. 🙂

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Mar 24, 2017 1:18 PM in response to VikingOSX

Ok. Got it working. It works with Safari and Chrome. No go in Firefox.

Thanks for the info.

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Apr 22, 2016 3:42 PM in response to TodFromIndiana

FWIW, normally I don't comment on GUI issues. However, in this case you are absolutely correct. It is yellow and it is nearly unreadable. I don't know of a way to change the link color but, you may want to drop Apple a note.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Rysz

Level 8

44,449 points

Apr 22, 2016 3:47 PM in response to TodFromIndiana

Unfortunately, you can't change the highlight color in Notes.

Request of Apple to give you a choice here: Apple Feedback

Having a choice to set defaults for text and headings would also be nice...

Apr 22, 2016 3:50 PM in response to dialabrain

@ Dialabrain: thanks. I followed your advice and left a version of the above post. Wish me luck in getting any kind of personal response!

-Tod

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Apr 22, 2016 3:52 PM in response to TodFromIndiana

Welcome. You most likely won't get a personal response but suggestions are read.

Today was the first day I saw the link color. I'm still shaking my head.

Jun 7, 2016 10:13 AM in response to TodFromIndiana

I couldn't agree more. Have pity on those of us who *are* colour blind.

Martin

Jun 21, 2016 11:14 AM in response to TodFromIndiana

Hey, it's not just me! I love using notes, but yellow text on a beige background is just ridiculous.

Sep 21, 2016 10:55 PM in response to TodFromIndiana

Here you go:

Select the links that need removing the lovely 'yellow'.

The go to Notes Menu ->Format->Fonts->Remove Style

The link turns 'black'.

Then you are free to apply any color.

jboz62

Level 1

4 points

Sep 30, 2016 4:46 PM in response to parsibawa

That removes the format for the whole line of text the link it's in, not good if you have a bulleted or numbered list. Also, it doesn't just turn the link black, it's no longer a link at all, just text.

You can accomplish this an easier way without disturbing the rest of the text. Right-click on offending yellow link and select "Remove Link", that will remove the link and make the color black. It's no longer a link, but you can easily select the URL and right-click again and select "Open URL". No more stupid yellow links. Apple what were you thinking...

jimhere

Level 2

465 points

Oct 19, 2016 3:13 PM in response to parsibawa

parsibawa, I should have seen this myself! Thanks for spelling it out for us.

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,446 points

Oct 19, 2016 7:40 PM in response to TodFromIndiana

In Notes v4.2 on El Capitan, the note color and its hyperlink are entirely controlled by the application. Neither appear within a dump of the Note's HTML body text.

In Notes v4.3 on macOS Sierra, only the hyperlink color is changeable in the HTML body text. But once you change it, you also destroy the hyperlink. If you then attempt to turn this existing new color text into a new hyperlink, it goes back to its gagme yellow link color again.

I can dump the Note body text out as RTF, modify the color table entry that is used for the yellow hyperlink to blue, and then copy that back on the clipboard, and when pasted into TextEdit, have a functional blue hyperlink. But, when one attempts to any variation of paste back into the Note body, the yellow hyperlink remains.

I don't see an available user fix for link color, at this time.

Mar 23, 2017 11:44 PM in response to jboz62

Good fix for this. Select "Copy Link" and apply.

dadnukum

Level 1

32 points

Mar 24, 2017 5:13 AM in response to VikingOSX

Nope, dragging a link from safari gives me a ghastly yellow link.

Even if that worked, it's a slim use case, it's still inconceivable that anyone thinks a yellow link is acceptable.

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Mar 24, 2017 11:28 AM in response to VikingOSX

Interesting. doesn't work for me. I get the ugly yellow link.

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Need to change the link font color in Notes