Dave, I get so frustrated that so many Websites don’t have share buttons when they have really good content. How can I just add a share button to every page so I can easily email it to someone or post it on Facebook or Twitter? I’m a Microsoft Edge for Windows user.
Given that we’ve had social media for many years now, it’s hard to understand why so many Web designers still omit any type of share buttons with their content. Even large corporations will have press releases or tutorial documentation where there’s no easy way to share it with friends, family, or colleagues. You’d think that they would realize that one of the points of the Worldwide Web is information dissemination, but…
Fortunately, the development team behind Microsoft Edge has you covered! One of many buttons you can enable and add to the top bar in Edge is designed for just this purpose: Share. You will need to ensure that you’re logged in to the service or services you want to use, but once you’ve done that – and you’re probably already set up on those services anyway! – it’s surprisingly easy to use. Let’s have a look.
A GREAT WEB PAGE, BUT NO SHARE BUTTON
Let’s start with a really interesting page for the budding meteorologist in your family: The National Weather Service education page:
Good content on NWS Education, but not a share button to be found. Now, you could just copy and paste the URL, but that’s crude when there’s a better solution.
ENABLE THE MICROSOFT EDGE “SHARE” BUTTON
Instead, launch “Settings” from the “•••” button on the top right of Edge. Click on “Appearance” on the left side.
It’s totally okay if you get sidetracked for a few minutes trying out different themes and color schemes for your browser. I do that too.
Ready to proceed? Okay. Scroll down, down, down on this page until you see a long list of optional buttons:
That’s just a few of them, but did you see one from the bottom “Share button”? Enable it.
Note: Why would anyone want to simulate Internet Explorer? That’s been out of support for over three years now, and obsolete far longer than that!
Once you enable the “Share button” it appears on the top toolbar:
Why is it greyed out? Because we’re still on the Settings page which can’t be shared. If I click back on the National Weather Service page it’s enabled!
WORKING WITH THE SHARE BUTTON
I’ll click on the new Share button on the NWS Education page. Here’s what pops up:
Very useful already! Notice that if you want to just grab the URL, you can click on “Copy link“. Let’s do something more interesting, however, by tapping on the Facebook button. Almost instantly this appears:
It’s a bit longer than my current window (that’s why the Share button is a bit weird looking) but this is exactly what you’ve been missing, right? Two clicks and you’re on Facebook with the page pre-loaded, ready for you to add a comment and share with your fans, friends, followers, or the public.
MICROSOFT EDGE: SHARE VIA EMAIL
What about email? That’s also easy to work with. If I click on “Outlook“, for example, it pops up a message composition window with a preset subject and the link in the body of the message:
Notice that Outlook is a bit clumsy unwrapping the subject (URLs specify “+” for space, which it should have automatically decoded) but otherwise, all you need to do is specify the recipient and you can send it!
Even better, click on the “Add Email Address” at the bottom of the Share window and you can specify a frequent recipient:
The section in the Share pop-up window says “Email to myself” but you can actually enter any email address that you prefer. Hooked up with Gmail? Specify that as the preferred email program, as shown above.
Now the bottom of the Share window is a bit different:
This is where it really gets useful: One click or tap to bring up the Share window, one click or tap to bring up an email compose window that’s ready to send if you don’t want to add anything else:
I can, of course, add recipients, add a comment, even include a screenshot of the Web page, but at its most fundamental, this is a great way to email myself useful Websites with just a few taps.
And that’s it. One of the many great features of Microsoft Edge (and its sibling Google Chrome, actually) that’s worth configuring and learning. Problem solved.
Pro tip: I’ve been writing about Microsoft Windows for many years. Please check out my extensive Windows help area for more useful tutorials while you’re visiting the site!