What you need to know
- Google Chrome's popular Link to Highlight feature might work with PDFs soon.
- The latest findings reveal that this new feature might probably be in the works.
- If it turns out to be live, users would be able to highlight some text from a PDF and create a shareable link.
Google is likely testing new ways to use its Text Fragment/ Link to Highlight feature on its Chrome browser, which allows users to highlight text even in PDFs.
The feature in the works was spotted by Leopeva64 (via The Verge), which is believed to be in the testing phase, per the latest Chromium Gerrit's findings. For the uninitiated, the Text Fragment feature on Chrome allows users to select some text — like from an article from a website or any text in general from a page — and create a shareable link.
The recipient who gets the link, clicking on it, would open up the specific text in highlighted format, allowing readers to quickly glance at it.
Google is working on making the “Text fragment” feature work in the PDF viewer, this feature allows you to highlight some text and then create a link that takes you directly to that highlighted text, currently this feature doesn't work in PDF files:https://t.co/XEAmgthE1e. pic.twitter.com/nAIY11zGYCDecember 29, 2024
While the feature has been around for a while for websites, PDFs viewed in Chrome don't support it. The latest findings, however, indicate Chrome might have plans to introduce it sometime later.
This feature would allow users to Text Fragment prominent text from a PDF and create a shareable link that can be opened directly by the recipient on their Chrome browser. It can be a handy feature for users to glance at essential points from otherwise large PDF documents. We could know more about the feature on how smoothly it works whenever it goes live.
Meanwhile, this is not the only feature currently in the works on Google Chrome. In December 2024, Leopeva64 shared a new discovery from the Canary flag, which highlights Google working on an AI-powered scam detection feature on the browser. It will potentially use on-device LLM to further scan a website for scams or possible data theft from a particular page.
Also early last month, another generative AI feature dubbed Store Reviews was also tipped to be coming to Chrome browser. This feature would summarize reviews from traditional websites like TrustPilot, ScamAdvisor, and several others.
All in all, even while most of the features under test seem promising, we still have to wait to see how many will be implemented on the Chrome browser through future updates.
