FHK Computer Lab #5: Adding Hyperlinks (Updated)

Last Update 4/17/08

Welcome back to computer lab. It’s been awhile – we were so busy with CPAC, and with getting the new WWF Facebook group up and running that this fell by the wayside – many apologies. It’s good to be back.

Hyperlinks are the way we get a link to look like this: FHK, rather than like this: http://www.forthardknox.com. Some social networks like Facebook and Digg simply won’t accept hyperlinks, but most blogs and discussion forums do. So if you would like your posts and comments to look more professional, this is one way to do it. For an example, I’ve used a link to FHK’s Australian correspondent, Colonel Robert Neville’s, blog.

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If you’re using a WYSIWYG (”what you see is what you get”) editor:

1) Type the text you want to hyperlink:

Colonel Neville Always Dresses for Dinner

2) Highlight that text with your cursor (left click and hold down):

3) Click on the “link” in the toolbar above:

4) Enter the url of your hyperlink, and click “ok.”

5) You’re done…your hyperlink should look something like this:

Colonel Robert Neville Always Dresses for Dinner

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If you’re not using a WYSIWYG editor, your hyperlink will look like this when you’re in edit mode:

 

 

Note that whatever is inside the “> <", whether it be text, or a picture, will become the hyperlink.

 

While you’re in this edit mode, you can also code your hyperlink to open in a new window (this makes it easier for your readers to get back to your article), by adding (minus the brackets): [target="_blank"] to your hyperlink, so it would look like this:

 

 

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Finally, what if you have a huge url, and you are not able use html code to add hyperlinks? Go to tinyurl.com. Enter your huge url, and it will give you a tiny replacement. Easy.

 

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Clear as mud? Any questions? Do you have suggestions to make adding hyperlinks or delivering these tutorials easier or more fun? Please use the comment section to let me know.

Actually, if you’ve read this at all, I’d be happy to hear from you in the comment section. (Two-way conversations are so much more fun than talking to myself, you know?)

Click here for the FHK Computer Lab Archive

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UPDATE: FHK Reader, Doug, author of the Stix Blog, suggested that we add the code for making a hyperlink out of a photo. Again, there are two ways to do this. If you are using a WYSIWIG editor, simpy treat the photo the same way you did the text, above. Click on it to highlight it, and enter your hyperlink url the same way you did with the text.

Here is an example of the HTML code for a photo. (Simply enter your image file text between the > < characters.):

This is how the hyperlink from FHK to the GOP was created from the photo here.