How to Share a Link to a Particular Phrase

Sometimes, when you send someone a link, you’re doing so just because you want them to read a particular paragraph or sentence. Maybe you're helping a friend figure something out, and you know the exact information they need. Maybe you're trying to settle an argument, and one particular paragraph indisputably proves you correct. Or maybe a particular line made you laugh, and you wanted to share it specifically.

You could, in these circumstances, highlight the relevant paragraph and take a screenshot. That's clumsy, though, and the person you're sharing with can't read more if they're interested. Plus, there's a better way.

Modern browsers—including Chrome, Safari, and Firefox—have a feature most people don't know about: Copy Link to Highlight. And it's surprisingly easy to use.

In Chrome or Firefox simply highlight some text, right-click it, then click Copy Link to Highlight. On Safari the feature is called Copy Link with Highlight, only slightly different.

The feature works the same way on all three browsers. A URL like this is copied to your clipboard. The link works like any other, but the browser will jump to the relevant section and the selected words will be highlighted.

This is very handy when you want to share an excerpt of writing in context, a concept that is totally lost if you just take a screenshot with a highlight.

This feature is made possible by a web standard called Text fragments. It's been built into browsers for years now; it's just not the kind of feature that made a lot of headlines at the time.

The feature basically creates a URL that includes enough information for your browser to find the highlighted text portion. If you copy a URL made this way and paste it into a document so you can study the link’s structure, you can see how this works.

In the simplest cases, the URL will include the entire highlighted portion. That works fine for short fragments, but for long passages, the URL gets ungainly pretty fast. When you’re linking to longer text fragments, the URL includes a reference to the beginning and end of the excerpt. Either way, the URL tells your browser not only which page to load, but what part of the text should be highlighted. Your browser finds the text, highlights it, and jumps directly to it.

There are subtle differences in how browsers handle this. Safari highlights text in yellow, for example, whereas in my tests Chrome seemed to prefer purple. But since this URL structure is standardized across browsers, a link created in one browser works in every browser.

It's worth noting this feature doesn't work in all contexts. If the website you're reading is behind a paywall, and the person you're sharing with doesn't have access, they probably won't be able to see the excerpt you're trying to share. The feature also doesn't work inside PDF files, even when you open them in your browser.

But sharing a text fragment, in most cases, is a lot more useful than sharing a screenshot. Give it a try the next time you're trying to win an argument online.