GD AddToAny in OJS 3.3: Social Sharing Buttons to Expand the Reach of Your Articles

Abstract

Why Making Sharing Easy Matters

If you edit a scientific journal in OJS, you already know that publishing a good article is not enough. The content needs to circulate — reaching researchers, students, professionals, and curious readers who are not yet familiar with your journal.

The GD AddToAny plugin addresses exactly this step: it adds social sharing buttons directly to each article page, positioned just below the title, at the moment when the reader is already engaged with the content. One click and the article lands on someone's LinkedIn feed, WhatsApp group, or X timeline.

What is AddToAny

AddToAny is a social sharing platform used by thousands of websites and portals worldwide. It provides native, well-maintained buttons for the major social networks, integrated in a lightweight and configurable widget. The GD AddToAny plugin brings this functionality into OJS with simple installation and no need to edit any template files or code.

Step by Step

1. Install the plugin. In the OJS admin panel, go to Settings → Website → Plugins → Upload a New Plugin. Select the .zip file and click Save. The plugin will appear in the generic plugins list as "GD Social Sharing Buttons AddToAny". Enable it by clicking the toggle. On a multi-journal portal, the plugin can be enabled at both the site and journal level.

2. Configure the social networks. With the plugin enabled, click Settings. A modal window will display the full list of available networks: Bluesky, Copy Link, Email, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Mendeley, Messenger, Pinterest, Reddit, Teams, Telegram, Threads, Tumblr, TypePad, WhatsApp, and X. Check the ones that make sense for your audience and click Save.

3. See the result on the frontend. Visit any published article. Just below the title, the sharing buttons will already be visible. The script loads asynchronously (defer attribute), without impacting page performance. The plugin automatically detects the correct title selector across different themes, ensuring compatibility with the major OJS 3.3 themes.

Final tip: don't forget Mendeley. If your journal's audience includes researchers and academics — and it probably does —, enable Mendeley in the network list. With one click, readers can save the article directly to their reference manager, making future citation easier.