The University of St. Thomas

Working with External Links

Creating External Links                                                      back

Types of Links in Collage

  1. Internal links are links to pages or documents that reside within your department’s web site.
  2. External links are links to pages or documents that reside outside of your department’s web site. They could be found on other UST department sites, or outside the UST site.

To Create an External Link

 
Open the page to which you want to add the link.

  1. In the Collage editor text box, use the mouse to drag through the text to be the link, or, click on the image to be the link. In our case, we want the highlighted text to take us to the home page for the American Lung Association, which is external to our department site.
     
  2. From the Collage toolbar, click the Link button.
     
  3. Click the tab called: External.
     
  4. From the list of external URL’s being used by your site, find the one  you need. If you need to create a new external URL, see our section below. Remember, if you let the mouse pointer hover over a URL in the list, you will see a pop-up appear with the entire URL. Click a checkmark next to the URL you need.
     
  5. For external links, we recommend you use a target of  "new window". This leaves your site visible in the background, and you don’t lose your viewer.
     
  6. Click the OK button to create the link.
     
  7. Click the Preview tab to test the link.

 

 

 


Adding a New External URL to the List


If the external URL you want to create in your page does not exist in the External link list in the dialog box, you can add a new external URL that can be used by you and others. Here’s how we could add an external URL for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association:

  1. Select your text, click the Links button, then the External tab. (Steps 1-3 above).
     
  2. Click the New Link button in the bottom-right of the dialog box.
     
  3. In the New URL dialog box, type the following:
    a. Name: A short, descriptive name for the site that others would also understand.
    b. URL: Choose the appropriate prefix from the drop-down list. For web pages: http://
    c. Type the remainder of the URL (web address).
     

     
  4. Click the OK button.
    That site is now available in the list of External URL’s.