Wherever you see text in a different color, and usually underlined, it means you can click and be taken to another place. You click on them all the time, but how do you make them? It can be done on web pages, emails, text messages, and Facebook posts. Just about anywhere you can type text, you can make a link.
Examples
- Click this link to check out our schedule of classes
- Here is Jim’s Drone Video from Long Beach Island
- Here is Chris and Jim’s photo album from our Cuba trip.
Two parts to a link
- The link itself is a web address, a URL (universal resource locator).
The actual link to the Cuba photo album looks like: https://goo.gl/photos/dMG1XzKNvEGVrBhNA The URL can stand on it’s own as a clickable link. In order to have a URL, a piece of content must be stored somewhere on the Web. I cannot give you a URL link to photos that are stored on my computer’s hard drive, but I can give you a link to photos stored on Google Photos because they are on the Web. - The text you want to describe the link.
It’s a lot clearer for someone to click on a link like: Cuba photo album.
To share this article with friends via a Text Message
If you are using your phone to read this article, you can send a link using a text message. The key is to know how to copy the URL of the article. The URL is located at the top of the screen, in the address bar. To copy it, you touch and hold (long press) on that bar, then tap on Select All, then Copy. See Longpress for Copy and Paste for video explanation. Once the address is copied, you can open up a text message and Paste it by using Long Press and Paste. This gets the full address link (#1 above) into your text message. For text messages, that’s as good as you can do. There is no way to create your own text like #2 above.
To share a link using Gmail on a computer
On a computer, you have the option for adding the second part to the link. So, for example, to share the link to our Cuba photo album:
- Open Google Photos and find the album to share, click the Share button
- Click “Get link” at the bottom
- Click Copy
- Go to Gmail and start a message
- Click the Insert Link button on the bottom toolbar
- You will see a form now where you can create both parts of the link:
- When you click ok, you will see a link in your email message that looks like: Cuba photo album.
Make a Link List to your Favorite Photo Albums
Most every computer tool for writing will give you the ability to make a 2-part link. Using Word, or any word processor, you can make a document with a list of links to all your photo albums. I made my album list in Blogger. Here’s a video:
If you are a Geeks on Tour member, here are some more related tutorial videos: