Web Team: Contribute Resource Guide

Creating Links and New Pages

Links allow users to navigate throughout the entire breadth of your site. The Contribute program allows users to links to documents, email addresses, external sites and pages within your site. Links typically consist of two parts: the text, which indicates a connection to another source; and the URL, or the connection information. When a new page is added, you should create a link to that page from a previous page.

• Link to a file
• Link to e-mail
• Link to anchors
• Link to external and interal pages
• Link to a page in your site (Create a new page)

Link to a File

Linking to files has several practical purposes. Linking to a document could help in disseminating a newsletter, a bulletin or meeting minutes. You might have a newsletter or bulletin saved on your computer (maybe in Word or PDF format). But instead of sending it out to dozens of people through e-mail, you could link to the document on your Web site and simply e-mail the address to your audience where the document can be downloaded.

PDF files are a preferable document format because most people have Adober Reader. Adobe Professional retails for about $45. To a lesser extent, you can also link to a Word document, but probably not WordPerfect.

Note:

To link to a file, follow the steps below:

• Browse to the page you wish to link from


• Click Edit


• Highlight the text you wish link from


• Click the Link button and choose File from My Computer


• Browse to your file and click "OK"

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Link to E-mail

An editable e-mail address can be found in the footer of each page on your site. When users click on the e-mail link, a new message is created in the user's e-mail program. The new message is ready to be sent to the e-mail address that you will provide.

To link to an e-mail address:

• Browse to the page where you wish to create an e-mail link, and click Edit


• Change the sample email address to an appropriate address


• Highlight the text you wish to transform into an e-mail link


• Click the Link button in the toolbar and choose E-mail Address


• Type the e-mail address and hit "OK"

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Link to anchors

While links may connect to files, other pages or e-mail, links may also connect to specific sections within a page. An anchor represents a specific section in a document. Linking to an anchor creates a "jumplink". To create a link to an anchor, you must first create the section anchor, then create a link to that anchor.

To create a jumplink, follow these steps:

• First, to create the anchor, click to place the insertion point or highlight the text you would like to function as anchor


• Chose Insert, then Section Anchor, then name the anchor when prompted. The name cannot start with a number or contain spaces.


• When you click "OK", a flag appears by your new anchor. The anchor appears only in edit mode.


• Next, to link to the anchor, browse to the page from which you want to link to your anchor. However, you may wish to link to your anchor from the same page.


• Highlight the text from which you want to link to your anchor, then select the Link button


• Choose the Browse to Web Page button, then click the Browse button.


• Browse to the page that contains the anchor you created. This may be the page you begin with. When you find the page with the anchor, click "OK"


• The address of the page you selected appears in the URL field. Click the Advanced button to display additional options


• Click in the Section Anchor menu and select the name of the anchor you made at the beginning, and click "OK"


• Now, when the user clicks on the link you made, they will be transported to the anchor selection that you indicated

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Link to an External Site

Occasionally, you may link to pages outside of your site. Links to community events or other pages within the college may improve the utility of your site.

To link to an external site:

• Browse to the page you want to edit, and click the Edit button


• Type and highlight (or locate and highlight) the text you wish to link from and click the Link button in your toolbar


• Click Browse to Web Page


• If you are linking to a page outside of your site, type in the specific address under "Web address (URL):"


• If you are linking to a page inside your site, click on the Browse button and browse to the page you want to link to from the portal page. Then click "OK"

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Creating a Link to a New Page

When you create a new page, you should link to it from an existing page in your site. To create a new page, you can copy an existing page to retain your organization -- and you won't have to start from scratch.

To create a new page that you will eventually link to, follow the steps below:

• Browse to a page in your site that you would like your new page to look like


• Click on the New Page button beside the Edit Page button


• If it is not already selected, select the option to Copy from Existing Page


• Enter a title for your page, such as the name of your county or department and the subject of the page (see Setting up Your Basic Page: Changing Your Title)


• The page you have created will look identical to the page from which you began. You should delete the content that you won't use and edit your new page until it is ready to be published


• Now click the browser icon in your pages panel, and browse to the page you would like to link from to your new page
  
• Click Edit Page


• Highlight the text from which you wish to link


• Now click the Link button and choose Drafts and Recent Pages.

• Select the page you just created.



• Contribute will return you to the editable page from which you were last working. Click on Publish
• Click Choose Folder to choose where your new page will be saved

• When deciding where to save your new page, you may want to create a new folder that will organize similar pages together (for example, all events pages or newsletter pages).

• To create a new folder, just click on the New Folder button at the top of the dialogue, then enter the title of your folder (i.e. "Events")


• Click "Select [name of folder]"


• Then click Publish All


• You have now successfully created a link to a new page and saved the new page in an appropriate location

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