Meet Tekspert Lorne. A technical specialist with Senior Planet-OATS, Lorne is the resident “tekspert” among his friends. Look out for his bi-weekly Tech Tips.
Ever find a funny picture while browsing the Internet that you know will crack your friends up? Or read a thought-provoking article that you can’t wait to discuss with someone?
Most websites today make it easy to share with friends and family on email and social media. These sites have sharing options for Facebook and email built-in, so all you need to do is click a button and enter a name or email address.
Look for the share buttons at the top or bottom of the web page that you want to share, or sometimes in a sidebar. Often, they’re in a strip, like this:
Sharing by Email
If you or the person you want to share with is not on Facebook — or if you want to share privately — you can do so via email. The email sharing icon is almost always in the form of an envelope.
Clicking on this icon will open your computer’s email app with the link pre-entered. All you’ll need to do then is to enter an email address and click your Send button, although you also have the option of adding a message. Some websites — for example, the New York Times — pop up an email form instead.
Sharing to Facebook
If you want to share an article or image to Facebook, just look for the classic Facebook icon.
Like the email icon, you can usually find it toward the bottom of the webpage, but it could also appear at the top or on the side. It might be in a block of social media sharing icons, along with Twitter and other social media buttons.
Once you click it, you’ll see a preview of what the post will look like, and you’ll have the option to share either on your timeline, or on a friend’s timeline, or with a specific friend via a private message.
Note that you will need to log into your Facebook account if you are not already logged in.
Having Trouble Finding the Right Icon?
Some sites may have a more generic “Share” icon, which usually looks like an arrow pointing up and to the right.
Clicking on this should pull up a list of familiar sharing options, such as for Facebook and email.
If you don’t see a share button at all on the page, you can go to your browser’s address bar and copy the URL (click here for a how-to on copying and pasting).
Then paste the URL into an email or Facebook status update. It’s a little more work, but still an easy way to share.
Happy sharing!
COMMENTS
4 responses to “Tech Tip: How to Share a Link With a Friend”
Another suggestion: copy and paste. With the mouse click on and highlight the URL in the browser window (in other words, the www. address). While it’s highlighted click on Edit, click on Copy. Go to an email you want to send, click in the body of the email, go to Edit, click on Paste and the link will appear right there. All the recipient has to do is click on the link. This will come in handy because there are so many interesting things on the Internet that do not have any sharing icons as mentioned in the tip.
One more way to share …
1. Go to “File” on Menu Bar
2. Select “Send”
3. Select either “Page by email” or “Link by email”
When I click on the envelope icon, I almost always get this message: “Could not perform this operation because the default mail client is not properly installed.” Then I get a cascade of dozens of identical windows that say “Navigation Canceled – Internet Explorer.” This happened, for example, with Senior Planet’s story: The Street Style of Chinatown Seniors.
Hi Julia. this error could mean that you do not have a mail application, such as Microsoft Outlook, set up on your computer. In this case it may be easier to copy the link from the search bar and then paste it into an email manually.
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