How do I make Links?
The first step in making links really involves thinking about the layout of your web page.  What information will you be presenting? How will you break this information down into logical chunks?  What is an obvious break in the information you will be presenting?  What sort of things will you be sharing? Information for Parents and Teachers?  Places to join the conversation or places to read the history of the topic?  Using the storyboards presented in "How do I make a Web Page" will help you get started.

Once you have decided what to link to, how to link depends on the HTML editor you are using. In Netscape Composer, you use the "Insert" menu and then type in the remote address or the local address of your link.  A remote address is an address that is not on a local disk, and usually means you did not create that address.  For example, you might include a link to the Smithsonian at http://www.si.org on you page, and this is an example of a remote link.  A local link might be another page you have created, such as mypage2.html.  When you insert (or place in Adobe PageMill) this link, you can search the harddrive and disk drives to find this page.  This is an example of a local link.  Again, it is VERY important that the name or address you enter in as a link is EXACTLY the same, as any small difference will cause your link NOT to work. Be sure to double check all links.  I like to check links on different computers, as sometimes I have accidently saved a file in another location other than my disk.  If  links don't work on one computer, but do on another, check the html code carefully for any minor name differences.  For example, sometimes the directory information is saved along with the name of the file.  Obviously, once you are no longer working on that computer, the directory information will no longer be useful.  For example, if you save a link as C:myharddrive/mystuff/spring/tech/page2.html, when you bring you files to another computer, it will not be able to find the file.  The name of your page is simply page2.html, and you don't want all the directory information included with the name.

Sometimes you will want at link to another location on a web page, rather than to another page.  This is called a target.  To link to another section of a page, first you have to set the target.  First go to the place where you want the set the target, and decide on a name for that place.  For example, I might want a target at the top of this web page, so I am going to place a target at the top called "top".  To add a target in Netscape Composer, use the mouse to place the cursor at the place you want the target and then click on the "target" button in the menu bar, which looks like this: .  Type in the name of your target.  To add a link to this target, you will type in the name of the webpage, plus the "#" symbol and the name of your target.  For example, this link will take you to my target at the top of this page graphic.html#top. Neato, huh?  This works well when you have a lot of text and you want your user to be able to scroll through it quickly.

Happy Linking!

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