How To Create A Hyperlink - Link to a URL or Google Document

There is a better way to share your documents and files by email than by sending an attachment. The better way is to put your documents and files in the cloud and just share them with a link. The 'cloud' could be Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and others.

Thank goodness we have cloud computing these days to make it easier and better for everyone. BUT, it’s hard to break old habits, and you need to have a good concept, or mental model, of what is different.

So here are a few things to think about.

If you send a document (Word or Excel files) as a FILE attachment, then your people will have a copy that will never change. If you ever update the document you will have to send the updated version to them again. And there are multiple copies everywhere. If you send an attachment to 10 people there are 11 copies of it (including yours).

BUT, if you send the document as a LINK to your Google Docs document (or Dropbox or whatever) then they will always go to your shared file and see the most current version. There is only one and it is always updated.

Here is how you send a link to a Google Apps document. First, open the Google Apps document (or a PDF or whatever in MyDrive) and click the blue "Share" button in the upper right corner. In the pop-up box click "Get Shareable Link" or "copy link".

That puts the URL link on your clipboard. Then go to your email and type your message. At some point you will say something like "You can see my document here". Or you could say something like "To see it click here"

In either case you want the change the words to a hyperlink, so you will select or highlight the words you want to make into a link with your mouse, then click in the little button at the bottom shaped like a triangle (assuming you are using Gmail). If you hover your mouse over it will say "Insert Files Using Drive". Or you could just press the shortcut key Ctrl + K.

That opens a pop-up box that says "To what URL should this link go?". Now you enter "control V" to paste the link in there and hit enter or return.

Your text should now be in blue and underlined, showing that it is now a hyperlink to your Google document.

Points to remember:

• This is a link to a URL, not an attachment. So the thing you are linking to must be on the Internet somewhere, not a file on your local PC. 
• There is only one copy of your document. For as many people that you email to they will all have a link that points to the same, single document or file.
• The advantage is that any changes you make will always be seen anytime someone clicks on the link to view your document. You never need to send updates or worry about versions. 

Always Make Hyperlinks!

Note that you can do this for anything that appears in a browser! For example news articles, blog posts (like this one!), YouTube videos, webpages, the list is endless! 

As a quick example, look at the top of this page. The URL is:

https://jerrystechtips.blogspot.com/2017/12/how-to-create-hyperlink-link-to-url-or.html

By using the "control K" shortcut to create a hyperlink I can turn that long URL into a single word like this. Hover your cursor over that and you will see it is the same link. 

So do everyone a favor and use links wherever you can. It will make your emails simpler and cleaner and reduce the clutter of files on everyone's computers.