This sounds like a problem with your email client. Which email client are you using? Many popular clients, such as Gmail, require you to select the link that you pasted, and push a button that looks like a chain. I believe Gmail will automatically "linkify" it when you send it, even if you didn't push the button.

Hotmail. I doubt it's the client as it works with Hotmail running on IE but not Firefox.

Thanks for the tip, I found the Insert Hyperlink and it works that way with Firefox, just a pain to have to do one extra step.