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showerhater 0 Newbie Poster

hi,
i am just now learning to take advantage of XML and RSS feeds. I actauly just finished my first RSS Feed. Whenever i check it in google reader the RSS feed shows up as a list of links with short descriptions. like i would like it to do.
However, when i look at the RSS Feed in MS outlook 2010 i don't get any available links. The feed looks like an email with what was the link in google reader as the title of the email. The title is not a clickable link. I use outlook RSS viewer to view other RSS feeds and they have a hyperlinked "view article" at the bottom of each article feed. How can i get that same hyperlink?

so, i guess my question boils down to: how can i put a hyperlink in XML, and if i can do that how do i change the text color so that someone will be able to tell it is a clickable link?

thanks for your time and effort!

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Dani AI

Generated

Short answer: Outlook 2010’s RSS reader does not always turn the RSS <link> element into a clickable button like Google Reader does. Embedding an HTML anchor inside the item body (the <description> or content:encoded) and wrapping it in a CDATA section guarantees a clickable link in most clients, including Outlook.

Example (minimal item with a safe HTML anchor in description):

<item>
  <title>Example post</title>
  <link>http://example.com/article.html</link>
  <description><![CDATA[
    Short summary. <a href="http://example.com/article.html" style="color:#0066cc;">View article</a>
    <br/>Full URL: http://example.com/article.html
  ]]></description>
  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:34:56 +0000</pubDate>
</item>

For full HTML content use the content module and declare its namespace on the <rss> element, then put the HTML in <content:encoded><![CDATA[...]]></content:encoded>. Always use absolute URLs and CDATA (or properly escaped entities) so XML parsers don’t break.

A few cautions and tips:

  • Some feed readers sanitize HTML and strip inline CSS. Relying only on color for “clickability” is fragile—include clear anchor text like “View article” and the plain URL as a fallback.
  • Outlook’s HTML rendering is limited; complex CSS may be ignored. If a link still does not appear, force-refresh the feed in Outlook (right‑click the feed folder → Update Folder) and validate the feed.
  • Validate the feed after changes with the W3C Feed Validation Service and follow the RSS 2.0 guidance in the spec: RSS 2.0 specification and W3C Feed Validation Service.

Reference: ’s observation (Google Reader vs Outlook) matches the common solution of placing an explicit HTML <a> in the item body so all readers show a clickable link.

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