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Highlight to share: letting readers share selected text

By Hannah Voss, Editor · Reviewed September 2026 · 3 min read

Quick answer

Highlight to share shows a small popover when a reader selects text, offering to share that quote with a link back to the page. It suits quotable writing and research; it annoys people who select text to read or copy. Make it keyboard accessible, keep it off form fields and code blocks, and never block normal copying.

On this page
  1. How it works
  2. When it is worth adding
  3. Setup that respects readers
  4. What gets shared
  5. Questions

How it works

Highlight to share: selecting a sentence shows a small share popover above itshare | copyselection plus page URL, sent only when the reader clicks
The popover appears only after a selection, and nothing is sent until the reader clicks.

A small script listens for a text selection inside the article. When the selection is a reasonable length, it shows a popover near it with share options. Clicking one opens the network's share dialog with the quoted text and the page address. The MashShare Select and Share add-on did this for WordPress, and its product page is one of the most linked addresses in this domain's history, which tells you readers and reviewers liked the idea.

When it is worth adding

  • Essays, interviews and research with sentences people want to quote.
  • Data posts where a single statistic is the shareable unit.
  • Speeches and transcripts.

It adds little to recipes, product pages or tutorials, where readers select text to copy commands or ingredients. On those pages the popover gets in the way.

Setup that respects readers

  1. Limit the scope

    Attach the listener to the article body only, and ignore selections inside pre, code, inputs and tables.

  2. Set a length window

    Show the popover for selections between about 20 and 280 characters. Very short selections are accidental; very long ones do not fit a post.

  3. Never interfere with copy

    Do not change the clipboard or add attribution text to copied content. Readers notice and dislike it.

  4. Make it keyboard friendly

    Selecting with the keyboard should also show the popover, focus should not jump to it automatically, and Escape should close it.

  5. Load it lazily

    The script is small, but it only needs to load on article templates.

What gets shared

X accepts the quote as the post text plus the address. Facebook and LinkedIn ignore pre-filled text and use the page's preview tags, so for those networks the quote is only useful if you copy it for the reader to paste. That limitation is why many sites offer only X and copy in the popover.

Questions

Does highlight to share work with every network?

Only networks that accept pre-filled text, mainly X. Facebook and LinkedIn build the post from your page's preview tags.

Is highlight to share accessible?

It can be, if keyboard selection works, focus is not stolen, and the popover can be dismissed with Escape.

Will it stop people copying text?

It should not. Never modify the clipboard or block normal copying.

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Hannah Voss, Editor. Checks every guide against a working WordPress install and the networks' current documentation. Last reviewed September 2026.

About the editor and our methods

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