Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 64929
Hyperlinks are created that do not look like traditional hyperlinks
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:41:01 UTC
The hyperlinks created in Calc have an ugly gray background that can not be changed or removed. They do not look like a hyperlink at first glance, and I would suppose that new users might be confused since the standard among spreadsheets is to create a traditional looking link. I suggest that Calc simply create hyperlinks that look like hyperlinks (like in Gnumeric and Excel). The hyperlinks should also be able to be fully formatted to change their appearance (again like Gnumeric and Excel). The ability to modify the "tip" (as in Gnumeric) or "screen tip" (Excel) that is displayed when you hover over the link would also be a nice addition to Calc
reassigning features and enhancements to user requirements@openoffice.org which will be the default owner for those tasks (was introduced some time ago)
Can confirm with OOO300m9. But (1): It´s only ugly on the screen. When printed, there is no ugly gray background. But (2): Please do not compare to Excel in this case, since Excel and Calc do have different handling of hyperlinks. Excel treats the complete cell as an URL, while in Calc, the URL is only activated from the URL text portion. In Calc you can have an URL and, in the same cell, some other text, that does not belong to and not behave as the hyperlink. So in Calc it is important to distinguish the URL from the other text.
*** Issue 96188 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Confirmed also with OOO310m19. I've tried and tried but there doesn't seem to be a way to change that ugly gray background behind hyperlinks. This is a pretty big turn off since it messes up the look of the spreadsheet and makes the link hard to see. When I looked around the web for answers I noticed that people have been requesting help for this issue on various forums since 2006--none of which were ever solved.