Share a link to text in Chrome with stylized Chrome WebNotes snippets
Google is planning big changes to its direct-to-text link fragment functionality in Chrome, via a new snippets feature called “Stylized WebNotes.”
First spotted by Chrome Story, Stylized WebNotes in Chrome give users a new way to share snippets through a link. Namely, by allowing users to share a text image file as a quote. When this image file is clicked, it directs users to the page from which the text was linked. And, as with the previous link-to-text fragment function, directly to the segment of the page that contains the citation.
Stylized WebNotes are in the share menu of Chrome on Android
As of this writing, one of the biggest differences is that the new feature only seems to work on Android. And even on this platform, it’s only available in Chrome Canary, hidden behind an experimental flag setting. So users need to download Chrome Canary. Next, they will need to navigate to “chrome: // flags” and find and enable “Stylized WebNotes” before accessing it.
Once enabled and after Chrome Canary has been closed and reopened or restarted, the feature is still not open. Instead, users should highlight the text and then choose the âShareâ option. A new option appears in the resulting menu. Specifically, an option titled “Stylize Highlight”.
One tap or click that reveals the quote image options. And clicking “Next” after scrolling through the desired option reopens the share menu for the selected option.
It’s still experimental for the moment
As noted above, this feature is always hidden behind a hidden flag setting. So it’s still experimental. But it does give a glimpse of when Google might release it. At the earliest, the new feature will arrive in Chrome 93. Since this is the current version of Chrome Canary. This one should arrive at the end of August.