Creating and Editing Hyperlinks on Columbia Finance Sites
This job aid details the process of editing, deleting, or adding a hyperlink to content block. It is designed for users who make edits to the following websites: Finance; Travel & Expense; Student Financial Services; Registrar; Student Service Center; and University Policies.
Last Revision: July 2023
What is a hyperlink?
Hyperlinks are a method to direct users from one page to another. An internal hyperlink takes users to a page within the same website (ex: Federal Work Study Rules and Guidelines basic page à Federal Work Study Payroll Schedule). An external hyperlink takes users to a page on a different website than the one they are currently on (ex: Federal Work Study Rules and Guidelines basic page à Federal Student Aid Website https://studentaid.gov/fafsa-app/ROLES)
You can tell whether a link is an internal or external link by seeing a small icon next to the link. The icon is an arrow pointing out from a square and indicates the link an external link. In the below example, the link titled “Federal Student Aid website” is an external link with the small icon at the end of the line.
Example of hyperlinks on a basic page:
- Log in to the site you’re trying to edit. To log in, go to the homepage URL and type “/user” at the end of the URL (do not include the quotation marks), then hit Return to navigate to that page. You will be asked to authenticate, which will log you into the site and return you to the homepage.
- Look for the editor ribbon on the page and select Edit. This ribbon is toward the top of the page underneath the main navigation menu. It will only appear if you are logged into the site. Once you click Edit, you will be taken to a backend editor’s view of the page.
- Find the content block you would like to add a link to. Hyperlinks can be added to most content block types. To determine which content block, you’d like to add the link to, hover your cursor over the thumbnail image next to the Edit button. The thumbnail will appear larger and show you a preview of that content block.
- Within the content block you want to add the link to, highlight the text you want to hyperlink.
- It is best practice to highlight the whole phrase you would like to hyperlink, rather than hyperlinking a single word or an entire sentence. The words you want to hyperlink should indicate to your user what the new page they will land on will be about.
- Once you highlighted the words you want to hyperlink, look to the toolbar at the top of the content block you’re editing. In the middle of the toolbar, click on the icon that looks like a chain-link with a plus symbol. When you click here, an editor box will appear to add your new hyperlink.
- Inside the link editor box, type out the name of the internal page you want to link. This only works with internal pages (pages from the same website as the one you’re editing). As you type, a drop-down menu of pages will appear.
- Click on the name of the page you would like to link. The link field and title field will populate. Click Save.
- Clicking save here will not save your changes to the whole page. You will still need to scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save, which will immediately record your changes and return you to the normal user’s view of the webpage, reflecting your new updates to the page.
- After you select Save, you will be brought back to the user view of the page you edited. There will be a green bar near the top navigation to alert you the page has been updated. Your new changes will appear immediately on the page.
Repeat steps 1-6 from above. These steps are the same for adding an internal and external link.
- For external links, paste the link from the outside website into the link field in the link editor box. The field will read “results not found” when you paste the link—ignore this. Manually type the the name of the external site you’re linking to and click Save.
- Clicking save here will not save your changes to the whole page. You will still need to scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save, which will immediately record your changes and return you to the normal user’s view of the webpage, reflecting your new updates to the page.
- After you select Save, you will be brought back to the user view of the page you edited. There will be a green bar near the top navigation to alert you the page has been updated. Your new changes will appear immediately on the page.
Repeat steps 1-6 from above. These steps are the same for deleting an internal and external link. There is no difference between deleting an internal or external link.
- Within the content block where the link is, Click on the hyperlinked text. On the toolbar at the top of the content block, Click on the icon of a chain-link with an X. This will remove the link from the text.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save, which will immediately record your changes and return you to the normal user’s view of the webpage, reflecting your new updates to the page.
- After you select Save, you will be brought back to the user view of the page you edited. There will be a green bar near the top navigation to alert you the page has been updated. Your new changes will appear immediately on the page.
WHILE ADD AND DELETING HYPERLINKS, YOU MAY NEED TO MAKE MULTIPLE EDITS TO DIFFERENT CONTENT BLOCKS ON THE PAGE. YOU DO NOT NEED TO SELECT SAVE FOR EVERY CHANGE YOU MAKE.
YOU CAN MAKE MULTIPLE CHANGES ON THE PAGE BEFORE CLICKING SAVE AND ALL EDITS WILL BE RECORDED.
WAITING TO SAVE UNTIL ALL UPDATES TO THE PAGE ARE COMPLETE IS A WAY TO BE MORE EFFICIENT WITH YOUR TIME ON THE PAGE.
While editing a page, if you accidentally delete the wrong content and need to start over, simply click the back arrow in the top left of your browser or close out of the browser tab or window completely.
As long as you do not save any mistakes you will not publish any mistakes.
If you need assistance creating, editing, removing, or recovering an accordion on your website, please contact the Finance Web Team at [email protected] with a summary of your needs.