Links within a post not showing

I'm finding it weird that links will not show up in my posts and that I cannot format the post - ie centering the image and text. If I click the image on the post (on the front end) I go to a second page where the link is clickable, but the main home page post doesn't have the links accessible. IF I didn't have an image there I would not be able to get to the links within the text at all. Is this a glitch? What am I doing wrong. (I have vs 2.1 - has this been fixed in later versions?) I have turned featured images off since with it on I cannot add an image to the body of the post and I'd prefer to do it that way.