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Making hyperlinks

You can use hyperlinks to connect to other people's web pages or to navigate through your own web page. You can also use them for e-mail. The buttons at the bottom of this page are all hyperlinks which connect to other pages within this site. To make a hyperlink using text or pictures you can use the following code:

<a href="http://www.myfriendspage.com">My Friend's Web Page</a>
The text My Friend's Web Page would become a link to the site listed after a href=

<a href="next.html"><img src="button.jpg"></a>
The picture button.jpg would become a link to next.html

To link to e-mail you would use the following:
<a href="mailto:johnny@yourisp.com">My E-Mail address</a>

If you added target="new" (ex. <a href="a.html" target="new">) it would open the link in a new window, you can also change the new to be other files like if you were using forms on your site and you wanted the link on your navigation file to open in main.html then you would replace new with main.html.

To link to other areas inside the same web page you would do this:

<a name="tableofcont">Table of Contents</a>
 
<a href="#chapter1">Chapter 1</a> 
<a href="#chapter2">Chapter 2</a>
 
<a name="#chapter1"> This is Chapter 1</a> 
<a href="#tableofcont">Back to Table of Contents</a>
 
<a name="#chapter2"> This is Chapter 2</a> 
<a href="#tableofcont">Back to Table of Contents</a>

In the first line you would give that section a name for return jumps. Then in the third and fourth line you have links to the different chapters, and in seventh and tenth lines you have links back to the table of contents. Here is an example of the above code (There is extra spaces in between so you can see how it works):
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

This is Chapter 1
Back to Table of Contents

This is Chapter 2
Back to Table of Contents

You should check your links every once in awhile to make sure none of them lead to a page that does not exist. People get frustrated when a site they visit has links that do not work. If the site that the link refers to is not up then take the link off all the pages that have the link. Sometimes the web development programs themselves like Macomromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage will check for broken links at the click of a button.