Open a Hyperlink in a New Window

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Preview	A hyperlink is a direct connection from the current location of the cursor to another location. Most familiar to web site visitors is the hyperlink that takes them to another place on the web. For example, when you use a search engine it presents you with a list of hyperlinks to a variety of web sites that might have the information you are looking for. Such a link is called an absolute hyperlink. The absolute hyperlink goes out to a file external to the current web site.
	Because the link goes out to a file external to the current web site, visitors must use the BACK button on the web browser to return to the original site. If visitors spend much time browsing deeply into the second site or venture even farther out on the web to yet another site, they may not be able to return to your site.
	You can solve this problem and ensure your visitors an easy return to your site by creating the hyperlink in such a way as to open an entirely new browser window to accommodate the linked site. In that way when your visitors leave the second site by closing the second browser window, they will find themselves back at your site.
	Recall the way to create an absolute hyperlink in Dreamweaver Highlight the clickable text. Type the complete URL in the Link text box in the Property Inspector.

	To open the hyperlinked page in a new browser window, Click on the down arrow next to the Target text box in the Property Inspector. Choose _blank. This is the default setting for a new window.
	Now when a visitor to your site clicks on that hyperlink, the web page will open in a new browser Example: Visit my home page. If you click on the hyperlink above, a new browser window containing my home page will open. When you close that browser page, you will find yourself back at this page.
	If you have more than one hyperlink on a page and you want to open more than one new window, give each new window a distinctive name. Example: Visit my home page. Then visit my course: English 123, Writing for the World Wide Web. When you click on the first link, the one to my home page, a new browser window will open. Resize that window, then come back to this page and click on the second link, the one to my course page. A third browser window will open with my course page.
	To create these two browser windows, I simply changed the Target in the Target text box from _blank to home for the first hyperlink and from _blank to web for the second hyperlink.
	You can also specify that every hyperlink on your page will open in the same new window. To do so you add a command to the properties of the entire page. Switch to Code view by selecting the Show Code View button on the toolbar.	Show Code View button
	Move your cursor to the <HEAD> tag at the very top of the page. Within the <HEAD> tag but after the closing </TITLE> tag, type: <BASE TARGET="_blank"> Save your page.