mjedge808 wrote:

I don't consider it necessarily "rude" to change the format.
Sometimes it's needed. My issue is that sometimes I have a text
email with active hyperlinks that I need to forward.

Text mail does not contain active hyperlinks. It cannot. If you see a
hyperlink that appears active it is because Outlook is being kind to you,
scanning your plain text message and making active anything that it thinks
is a hyperlink. It is something happening on your user interface only. The
message itself doesn't contain active links.

When I try to
forward it, the links become inactive. If I could set all my
forwards to be HTML or Rich Text, those links would remain active.
Which is what I need. This is also the case in some replies, where a
previous link needs to be active.

Outlook always uses the format of the original message when replying or
forwarding. It's really a simple matter to train yourself to click the
Format button and choose the format you want each time.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]