Method to import urls from safari bookmarks

[teasthope]

I've been looking through the forums in search of a method available in
a previous version of mac office. We upgraded to mac office 2004 and
migrated to safari. However we aren't able to use the insert command
(in entourage) to insert urls stored as bookmarks.

The practical description goes something like this...say you are
writing an email and you want to reference a website (that you have
bookmarked in Safari). How do you insert it into the entourage message
text. There should be an elegant way to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

 

[mmmmark]

I've been looking through the forums in search of a method available in
a previous version of mac office. We upgraded to mac office 2004 and
migrated to safari. However we aren't able to use the insert command
(in entourage) to insert urls stored as bookmarks.

The practical description goes something like this...say you are
writing an email and you want to reference a website (that you have
bookmarked in Safari). How do you insert it into the entourage message
text. There should be an elegant way to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

If you have the page opened in safari, there are numerous ways to do it.
I'll describe my favorite which is a "bookmarklet". This is actually a
javascript that you save like a bookmark. I put it in my bookmarks bar for
easy access. When you click on it, it will open a new email, and add the
URL and the title to the body.

Try and google search for "bookmarklet" and you'll find lots of very useful
little snippets. Here is the text I use in mine:

javascript:t=document.title;x=(window.location);window.location='mailto:?Subject='+t+'&Body='+t+'%20%20'+x+'%20'

Hope it survives being posted from a windows computer. What is interesting,
is this is completely cross platform.

Good luck,
Mark

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Try Barry Wainwright's "Insert Safari URLs" AppleScript.
<http://www.scriptbuilders.net/search.php?search_str=Insert+Safari+URLs>

You can configure the script to run from a keyboard shortcut, or you can
select it from the script menu. I find it quite handy.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi,

in addition to the previous comments: in Entourage v.x (and maybe even
2001), there was a feature that allowed you to look up bookmarks stored in
Internet Explorer 5. As far as I remember, this feature only worked in
conjunction with IE5, and it is no longer included with Entourage 2004. It
wouldn't be of any use now anyway since IE for Mac got axed for good in
January and hardly anybody, I would presume, is still using IE, with the
abundance of modern browsers available for the Mac platform. Long story
short: there is currently no straightforward way for Entourage to hook into
Safari's bookmark feature, so the options are very limited.

* You can use the Java bookmarklet described by Mark

* You can use the script mentioned by Mickey

* You can, if you are using Mac OS X 10.4, use the Send Link command in
Safari 2's File menu

[Note the downside of all these methods: you are required to have the page
whose bookmark you want to email loaded in the current browser window]

* Alternatively, you can drag bookmarks from Safari into an open Entourage
message window to create a URL

PS: My memories about that feature in Entourage v.X are very, very vague, so
I might be wrong about it.

I've been looking through the forums in search of a method available in
a previous version of mac office. We upgraded to mac office 2004 and
migrated to safari. However we aren't able to use the insert command
(in entourage) to insert urls stored as bookmarks.

The practical description goes something like this...say you are
writing an email and you want to reference a website (that you have
bookmarked in Safari). How do you insert it into the entourage message
text. There should be an elegant way to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Michel Bintener]

On second thought, wasn't that feature in Word? Or was it in both Word and
Entourage?

I've just opened Word and discovered that it is still there. Hmmm... I do
seem to remember seeing it in Entourage v.X, too, though...

PS: My memories about that feature in Entourage v.X are very, very vague, so
I might be wrong about it.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It kinda sounds to me like what you want is a way wherein you could navigate
your Safari bookmark folder from Entourage and select a URL to insert into
the message?

Alternative approach, assuming you don't want to send the link you are
currently surfing, but rather, want to access a stored collection of links
that you send out regularly:

I store bookmarks that I frequently use in Entourage as Stationery notes,
because Barry Wainwright has a lovely script that lets you re-use
boilerplate text over and over again, quite easily.
http://scriptbuilders.net/files/insertnotes1.3.1.html

It takes a bit more setup time, of course, but is very quick once set
up--far quicker than navigating my very full bookmarks folders would be.

Now that you mention it, I am a little surprised no one seems to have an OS
X utility out there that would let you do this to/from any program. I think
Butler, for instance, pulls the content of various bookmark folders--how
hard to add a layer that would option-click to copy the URL to the
clipboard?

 

[Mickey Stevens]

You're right, Michel. It was indeed a part of Entourage X under the
"Insert" menu.

 

[teasthope]

Thanks Michel,

What do you think about Daiya Mitchell's ideas? Do you know if this
feature is in the works for the next mac office release???

Hi,

in addition to the previous comments: in Entourage v.x (and maybe even
2001), there was a feature that allowed you to look up bookmarks stored in
Internet Explorer 5. As far as I remember, this feature only worked in
conjunction with IE5, and it is no longer included with Entourage 2004. It
wouldn't be of any use now anyway since IE for Mac got axed for good in
January and hardly anybody, I would presume, is still using IE, with the
abundance of modern browsers available for the Mac platform. Long story
short: there is currently no straightforward way for Entourage to hook into
Safari's bookmark feature, so the options are very limited.

* You can use the Java bookmarklet described by Mark

* You can use the script mentioned by Mickey

* You can, if you are using Mac OS X 10.4, use the Send Link command in
Safari 2's File menu

[Note the downside of all these methods: you are required to have the page
whose bookmark you want to email loaded in the current browser window]

* Alternatively, you can drag bookmarks from Safari into an open Entourage
message window to create a URL

PS: My memories about that feature in Entourage v.X are very, very vague, so
I might be wrong about it.

I've been looking through the forums in search of a method available in
a previous version of mac office. We upgraded to mac office 2004 and
migrated to safari. However we aren't able to use the insert command
(in entourage) to insert urls stored as bookmarks.

The practical description goes something like this...say you are
writing an email and you want to reference a website (that you have
bookmarked in Safari). How do you insert it into the entourage message
text. There should be an elegant way to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[teasthope]

Daiya,

I'll investigate the Stationery notes idea because it is only a handful
that we go searching for .... How do stay in the loop to find out if an
OSX utility is created? Do you know if this feature is in the works
for the next release of mac office?

Tom

 

[mmmmark]

Daiya,

I'll investigate the Stationery notes idea because it is only a handful
that we go searching for .... How do stay in the loop to find out if an
OSX utility is created? Do you know if this feature is in the works
for the next release of mac office?

Tom

Don't hold your breath or make any decisions based on "might be's" . ;-)

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Tom,

I'll investigate the Stationery notes idea because it is only a handful
that we go searching for ....

If it's consistently the same handful, yeah, Barry's script should make you
happy.

Alternatively, you could save the URLs as AutoCorrect entries via Tools |
AutoCorrect, so that you type "urlhome" and Entourage corrects it to
http://www.whateveryourhomeurlis.net

Word uses the same list, which might be handy or might not. The setup on
AutoCorrect is probably quicker that for Stationery. You can copy and paste
into those boxes. But if you have other boilerplate that you might set up
as well, Barry's script is probably better for anything over a couple lines.

How do stay in the loop to find out if an
OSX utility is created?

I just google for key words when I think of a utility I want, and see what's
out there. And I check some Mac blogs‹ http://www.tuaw.com/ is a busy one
that shares a lot of news, and good utilities percolate into the public eye,
get mentioned on this group, etc. But I did some googling and got a hint
that pulling the URLs from Safari might not be as easy as it seems to
non-developer me.

Daiya


Daiya wrote, talking out her a**:

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Don't hold your breath or make any decisions based on "might be's" . ;-)

Yeah, no kidding. And don't read anything into my "I'm surprised that...".
It's not like I know what I'm talking about.

My wild-ass guess based on zero knowledge would be that this feature would
not show up in Entourage anytime soon, just because they have a lot of other
features to work on and I doubt this would be high priority. I'm assuming
that the Entourage X feature only worked with Internet Explorer? So that
probably means they already had a discussion about it, decided to scrap the
feature and not bother redoing it for Safari, and traffic on this newsgroup
suggests not that many people are missing it.

But Tom, you can use Help | Send Feedback to make sure they know there are
people out there who would like the feature back. Can't hurt.

Daiya

 

[Jeff Zienowicz]

Alternatively, you could save the URLs as AutoCorrect entries via Tools |
AutoCorrect, so that you type "urlhome" and Entourage corrects it to
http://www.whateveryourhomeurlis.net

Word uses the same list, which might be handy or might not. The setup on
AutoCorrect is probably quicker that for Stationery. You can copy and paste
into those boxes. But if you have other boilerplate that you might set up
as well, Barry's script is probably better for anything over a couple lines.

Another option would be the Scrapbook feature (I keep wanting to find ways
to use that feature; this might actually be a good application for it). You
could paste URLs into the scrapbook and give them titles that start with
"URL:" (e.g. "URL: Some Site") so that they sort together. Alternately, you
can assign categories, projects, and keywords to scrapbook items, so you
could use one of those methods to keep the URL scrapbook items together.

Jeff

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi,

Daiya's recommendation is excellent, as always, but you'll have to find out
for yourself if that's what you truly need. There have been other
recommendations in the meantime which you might find equally useful.

Also, we MVPs do not work for Microsoft, so we have no idea what features
they are going to add to the next version of Office. I'm afraid you'll have
to wait for official announcements by Microsoft to find out. It can't hurt
to send Microsoft feedback through the Send Feedback on Entourage entry in
the Help menu, though, so in case you haven't done so already, go ahead and
let them know you want this feature.

Thanks Michel,

What do you think about Daiya Mitchell's ideas? Do you know if this
feature is in the works for the next mac office release???

Hi,

in addition to the previous comments: in Entourage v.x (and maybe even
2001), there was a feature that allowed you to look up bookmarks stored in
Internet Explorer 5. As far as I remember, this feature only worked in
conjunction with IE5, and it is no longer included with Entourage 2004. It
wouldn't be of any use now anyway since IE for Mac got axed for good in
January and hardly anybody, I would presume, is still using IE, with the
abundance of modern browsers available for the Mac platform. Long story
short: there is currently no straightforward way for Entourage to hook into
Safari's bookmark feature, so the options are very limited.

* You can use the Java bookmarklet described by Mark

* You can use the script mentioned by Mickey

* You can, if you are using Mac OS X 10.4, use the Send Link command in
Safari 2's File menu

[Note the downside of all these methods: you are required to have the page
whose bookmark you want to email loaded in the current browser window]

* Alternatively, you can drag bookmarks from Safari into an open Entourage
message window to create a URL

PS: My memories about that feature in Entourage v.X are very, very vague, so
I might be wrong about it.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***