Computers in the Classroom

Computers in the Classroom

Practice Steps for Creating a Basic Web Site

þ Step One: Create your homepage

When you open Word, go to File, and select New file. Select from the choices on the right side of the screen the option, Blank Web Page. Now, type in some text for this page, including text that later will be used for making hyperlinks.

þ Step Two: Getting ready to save the file by setting up a folder

Once you have typed in the text, you are ready to save your work. Follow these directions:

Go to File:

Select, Save As:

Look for, Save In: Use the drop-down arrow to find the U drive, where you need to save all of your Web files. Be sure to click on the U drive and wait for that drive to appear in the Save In box. You will eventually create a folder on your U drive for saving all of your web files. For this practice exercise, we will create a folder called trial; later you will delete this folder. To create the folder, do as follows: Look for the yellow file folder (which shows a gold star in the lower right corner) on the Save As screen, and click this icon (button). When the dialogue screen pops up to name this new folder, type in the name for this folder, calling it, Trial. Trial will be then become listed as a file folder in your U drive. Click on the word Trial so it appears in the Save In box, so the file you are about to save gets saved in this specific folder that you created on your U drive.

Please note: All files that are part of a single web site must be placed in the same folder, and this folder can not contain other files. Keep this organizational concept in mind for creating your final web site. (I suggest calling the real folder with your web files, Web, when you are ready to create it later on, perhaps next week.)

þ Step Three: Saving the homepage

Now that you have the folder Trial showing in the Save In box, type the following name for your homepage:

Index

All web sites have the name index for the file that opens up the web site. This practice is universal on the Web. Calling this introductory file index is critical. If you do not call this opening file index, your site will not work when you upload it to the Internet!

þ Step Four: Copying two files from Word and making them into Web files

Open the first file from the disk where the file is saved. Once the file is on screen, select (highlight) the whole file, using the method that suits you. Next copy what you have selected, using your preferred method for copying text. Once the information is copied, you are ready to paste it into a new Web file. Go to the File menu and select New. Then select Blank Web Page. (See Step 1 above about finding this option on the right side of the screen.) Now paste the text that you copied on to the blank page. Once the text is pasted, you are ready to save this new web file. To save this file: go to File menu, and select Save As. Be sure to be saving on your drive in the Trial folder!! Check twice to ensure the Save In window shows that you are saving this file in the Trial folder. When you name this file, give it a one word name. Never use spaces in naming a web file!! Now close the file you just created, named, and saved.

To put the second file saved on disk into your Trial folder, open the file, and copy it; then select File, New, Blank Web page, and proceed as done above. Once again, be sure to save the file in your Trial folder and remember not to use any spaces in naming the file. You can leave this saved file open or close it as you proceed to the next step.

þ Step Five: Adding hyperlinks

Find your index file. If you have not closed the file, you can find it by using the Window menu at the top of the screen and finding the file on the list and clicking on its name, or looking at the bottom of the screen to see if the file is still available for opening by clicking on its name. If you closed the file, then open it as you ordinarily open files.

Find some text on the homepage you can use for creating a hyperlink, text that corresponds (names) content in the file to which you viewer will go when the hyperlink is clicked. Highlight this text. Now you are ready to make this text become a hyperlink. To insert the hyperlink, you can use the menu or icon (button) method. Both are described below.

Menu method: Use the Insert Menu and select Hyperlink, the last option on the long menu of the Insert menu. (If hyperlink does not appear on the drop-down menu, then click on the down arrow to see more options and to extend the menu list. You should be able to find the choice at the bottom of the list.)

Icon (button) method: Look for the icon on the Standard Toolbar that looks like a globe and has gold link chain in the right-bottom corner. Hover with your mouse over the icon to see if the “Insert Hyperlink” screen tip pops up. If so, you have the correct icon.

Whichever of the above methods you use to start the process of inserting a hyperlink will bring you to the screen for locating the file that you want the hyperlink to go to. On this dialogue screen, search in your drive U in the Trial folder to find the name of the file that you want the hyperlink to take the viewer to. Once you find the file, click on its name and select it by hitting ok. Caution: be sure you are clicking on a file name that has an htm or html extension at the end of the name. More about this concept will be explained once you start to insert pictures into your text files. (When you insert pictures, these pictures will be saved into folders in your web folder; these folders are not to be confused with file names, which are what you need to locate when you insert hyperlinks. You do not want your hyperlinks to go to file folders; you want them to go to specific htm/html files.)

Now create a second hyperlink on your homepage, following the same method. This hyperlink will go to the second file that you copied and then created as a Web file. Remember to save your Index file as you go along because each time you insert a hyperlink, the file gets edited.

BRAVO! You have the basics, and you are ready for lesson two: inserting clip art, formatting text, and using tables.

Please remember to bring your actual saved files of your software evaluations to the next class, so you can go through the process of creating your real web site.