I know that most of you know how to create a link either in your text or in your e-mail. This is for those who don’t know. A link or hyperlink is the way you create a direct path to another document. It makes it easy to transport your reader to something else you want him/her to read.

The following was in a long list of items when I did a search on Google on “links�, and these are the links I am referring to in this article.

The address of another document embedded into a Web page, so that if you click on the associated text or button, you retrieve the linked document.
www.liv.ac.uk/webteam/glossary/

Hypertext link.
webmaster.lycos.co.uk/glossary/L/

In hypertext systems, such as the World Wide Web, a link is a reference to another document. Such links are sometimes called hot links because they take you to other document when you click on them.
www.interactivewebsites.com/SiteOptions/html/lingo.shtml

Click this link below for the many interesting definitions of “link�.

Link Definitions

In e-mails, documents or websites, there can be one or more words that are the clue to a link. It might be as simple as two words., eg. Click Here . When you hover your mouse over the Click Here , a hand symbol appears if the link is active, and if you depress your left mouse button, you will be transported to another document. It might be another website, or another page in a website, or a document or something to download.

Usually the text in a link is different to the “normal� text in the document. Usually a different colour.

How can you create a link?

If you just key in a URL in a Word document and in most e-mail programs, it will automatically link to that website, or email if that is what you have keyed in e.g. http://www.google.com
when you complete the address and click enter.

If you are using Word – go to “Insert� in your toolbar, click on Hyperlink or use the shortcut Control+K, it will give you two text bars to complete. One is for the Text you wish to display (Click Here, or Visit My Blog or whatever is appropriate), and the second one to complete is the full URL . Explanation of URL is below.

So if you want to put in a link to your BloggerParty Blog – you could key in
“See my BloggerParty Blog� in the text to display, and then put in http://YOURUSERNAME.bloggerparty.com in the address area. (YOURUSERNAME in this case is a subdomain, and bloggerparty.com is the domain)

In BloggerParty you will have to use simple HTML to create a Hyperlink in your Blog text. Click on Formatting Options below the text box, to see details.

I usually click onto the link “More information on formatting options� which gives the URL code for creating a link. It is second from the top of the list of options. Cut and paste the HTML code, and substitute the URL and the words you want your reader to see. The instructions do say that all URL's will be created as links, but I've found that for some reason that does not always work.

If it doesn’t work the first time, you can always use the Edit function in your post to do it again until you get it right.

NOTE: URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater, for example the URL of BloggerParty is http://bloggerparty.com. (note this does not need the www in front.) It is the Web address of a website or blogsite.

Now, I hope this doesn’t confuse you all. I’ve had to read, re-read and re-write some of this. I tried to make it as simple as possible, but it’s not that easy.

If you are practicing how to do it in an e-mail, one way to test it is to send yourself the e-mail, and see if the link works when you open the e-mail.

Have fun.