# Hyperlink text overridden by topic title when changing link destination

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/hyperlink-text-overridden-by-topic-title-when-changing-link-destination/396732
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [22 februari 2026 om 16:15 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hyperlink-text-overridden-by-topic-title-when-changing-link-destination/396732 "2026-02-22T16:15:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![stephtara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephtara/32/517827_2.png) [@stephtara](https://meta.discourse.org/u/stephtara)
#### Post date: [22 februari 2026 om 16:15 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hyperlink-text-overridden-by-topic-title-when-changing-link-destination/396732/1 "2026-02-22T16:15:46Z")

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Is there a solution to this? I’m copying over a lot of documentation from Google Docs, and need to update the jungle of internal links between the documents. When I go to edit a link and replace the Google Doc URL with the Discourse topic I want instead, it overrides the linked text.

Here’s my original link text:

 ![Screenshot 2026-02-22 at 17.10.08](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/1/6/0/160b97529bc04cb33251d20a32590a6cfd0c6eff.png)

I search for the right topic, select it in the list, and look, the linked text has been changed to the topic title:

 ![Screenshot 2026-02-22 at 17.10.21](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/4/a/7/4a74e1db1c1970e6706be7b7e516dc826e9601d3.png)

So I need to type it correctly again.

I guess I could make all these changes in Markdown, but others than me are going to be helping out with this and they aren’t all necessarily comfy using Markdown.

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### Author: ![ToddZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/toddz/32/328350_2.png) [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [22 februari 2026 om 17:58 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hyperlink-text-overridden-by-topic-title-when-changing-link-destination/396732/2 "2026-02-22T17:58:42Z")

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Retyping in the dialog or using Markdown are really the options here.

I’d imagine that, like most things, the link dialog behavior could be altered with a component or plugin. But other times you’ll _want_ it to grab the internal topic title…

> [@Displaying "full topic" text on category page + access to subcategory from menu bar](https://meta.discourse.org/t/displaying-full-topic-text-on-category-page-access-to-subcategory-from-menu-bar/396715/11):
>
> Discourse makes it **much** easier for non-techy people to link to stuff inside the community: click the little linky button, start typing a keyword or the name of the thing you want to link to, and there you go.

So it might get complicated 😵‍💫

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![stephtara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephtara/32/517827_2.png) [@stephtara](https://meta.discourse.org/u/stephtara)
#### Post date: [22 februari 2026 om 18:10 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hyperlink-text-overridden-by-topic-title-when-changing-link-destination/396732/3 "2026-02-22T18:10:02Z")

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yeah, it should use the link title if you’re creating a link from scratch; if you’re editing a link which already contains text, then by default it should keep that text (maybe provide an override?)

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![ToddZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/toddz/32/328350_2.png) [@ToddZ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ToddZ)
#### Post date: [22 februari 2026 om 18:19 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hyperlink-text-overridden-by-topic-title-when-changing-link-destination/396732/4 "2026-02-22T18:19:21Z")

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The way it works now is so typical, I’ve never thought twice about hand editing – but providing the title as an optional override is an interesting UI idea. 💡