You can enable your readers to jump or navigate to specific sections in your story by creating section links (also known as "anchor tags" or "anchor links").
Note: A section ID won't change if you move a section around within a story, but it will change if you make a copy of a story or if you add a section from a section template.
Using section links externally
If a section link is shared external to the story (e.g. on social media, a newsletter, or in an email etc), clicking the link will take the reader directly to that section of the story, saving them having to scroll from the top.
This can be a great way of promoting specific parts/chapters of the story, and can help give your stories a longer shelf life.
Using section links for in-story navigation
You can also use section links within a story, enabling your readers to navigate to different parts of the story by clicking elements that contain section links.
For example, you could create a button in the Title section called "See our gallery" that is linked to a gallery section toward the end of your story. When readers click the button, they will be taken straight to the gallery section.
See our help docs for how section links can be added to inline images, text, and buttons.
How to link to a section
To create a link for a specific section, you first need to locate the section's ID, which can be found in the Section Options panel for the section you wish to link to.
Open the Section Options, and you'll find a row labelled SECTION ID that contains a string of letters and numbers that look something like the following: #section-abcde12345.
Use the copy button in the row or highlight and copy the full string including the #.
Create an external section link
To create a section link for sharing external to the story (e.g. on social media), you simply add the section ID you copied in the above step to the stories URL.
So, if your story URL was "https://yourcompany.shorthandstories.com/story1/" the structure of the section link would be: "https://yourcompany.shorthandstories.com/story1/#section-XXXX"
You can then simply share or promote this link on any external platform.
Note: If you're linking to an external Shorthand preview URL before the final published URL has been determined, do not include a forward slash before the #: https://preview.shorthand.com/abcde12345#section-XXXX
Create an in-story section navigation link
To create a section link for use in the story, that links to another part of the same story, you only need to paste the section ID into the link field.
For example if you created a button that linked to another section in your story, the link field would only need the section ID (see below).
