Dreamweaver Text and Links

Dreamweaver topics:

• Dreamweaver Site Setup
• Dreamweaver Text and Links
• Dreamweaver Adding Images
• Dreamweaver Using Styles
• Dreamweaver Using Layers (divs)
• Dreamweaver Using Templates
• Dreamweaver XHTML Code
• Dreamweaver Frames

Paragraph

By default, text is classified as paragraph. Each Enter will finish the current paragraph and starts a new one.

If you want to jump to the next line, without getting a new paragraph (with an empty line in between), you use shift + enter.

You can select a text alignment in the Properties Panel:

From left to right:

• Align Left
• Center
• Align Right
• Justify

Titles

You can make text into a heading through the Properties panel, or using the buttons h1 to h3 in the Text toolbar. If you use the pull-down in the Properties panel, it will change they entire paragraph that is currently active (i.e: where your cursor is) into a heading.

The number indicates the level of the heading, with one being the highest level (the title for the entire page). Level two can be used as a section heading, etc.

Text Formatting

You can make text bold or italic using the buttons in the Properties panel. Make sure the text you want to change is selected.

Lists

Lists should be created as such in a web page. Avoid making them yourself with your own numbers or hyphens.

ul

Unordered List - List using bullets, dashes etc

ol

Ordered List - List using numbers or letters.

When you use the UL or OL button, Dreamweaver will change into List mode. Each line becomes a element in the list. Finalize the list by a double Enter. The li -button allows you to change text into a list item.

You can use the TAB button to change the level, and thereby indentation, of the list. TAB will change to a lower level; shift + TAB changes to a higher level.

Links

First of all it's important to know that links won't work in Dreamweaver itself. To test them, you need to preview your page in a web browser. Use F12 or click the globe icon directly above the editing area. There are various 'classes' of links and different ways to create them in Dreamweaver. Some examples:

Links within a page

Especially in pages that are very long due to the large amount of content, it can be useful to add links to certain 'anchor' points within the page, so you can easily jump to a specific point within the page. Those links consist of two parts: the link itself and the anchor-point within the page, called a named anchor.

To add a named anchor in your page:

Open the Common Toolbar and click the anchor icon.

enter a name for the anchor (it can't contain spaces). A anchor symbol shows the position within the page. This symbol is only showed within Dreamweaver for easy editing; it won't show in a web browser.

you can create the link in two ways:

Select the text for the link and use the Point-to-file tool:

Click the tool and keep your left mouse button pressed. Then drag to the anchor symbol in the page and release your mouse button above the symbol.

You can also manually enter the name of the anchor, prefixed by a #.

You can use this methos to create a 'Table of Contents' at the top of the page, allowing the user to quickly jump to e specific section of interest.

You can also use a link to an anchor (#) when linking to another page. Just append the #anchor part to the link to a page. For example: page2.html#anchor1. This link will open page2.html and will directly jump to the anchor 'anchor1'.

Links within a website

When creating links to another page within the same website, it's recommended to use the Point-to-file tool. Select the text that should be turned into a link and use the Point-to-file tool from the Properties panel:

Click the tool and keep your left mouse button pressed. Then drag to the page (file) in the file panel at the right and release your mouse button above the file.

You can also use the folder icon to browse for the file to link to.

Links to other websites

Select the text that should be turned into a link. Enter the address in the input field 'Link' in the Properties panel.

To create a new link, you can also use the Hyperlink button in the Common Toolbar:

Don't forget to start the link with http:// (or https://)

Targets

You can specify a target for each link in the Properties panel. This will determine where the link will open. By default it will open in the same window (and frame) as the page the link is in. Other options are

_blank

opens the link in a new (blank) window

_self (default)

opens in the current window (or frame)

_parent

when using frames: opens the link in the parent frame

_top

when using frames: opens the link in the entire window the current frame is in (removing all frames)

When using frames, you can also enter the name of a frame in the Target field. The page will then open in the specified frame.