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You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Site Maintenance / How to Embed Links

How to Embed Links

by | 110 Comments

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One of my pet peeves is when you all put hyperlinks in the comments section, but do not embed them. Sometimes, this is not a problem, but other times, the link is so long that it can, in essence, break the comments section for some users. Since I wanted to play around with screen captures and Photoshop, I figured I would make this quick tutorial for you, which appears below the fold. If you do not know how to embed your hyperlinks, please check it out.

The following is what your hyperlinks in the comments section SHOULD look like:


Good patriots embed their links so that loose urls do not get in the hands of the terrorists.

The following (with the names blurred to protect the guilty) is what it should NOT look like:


Clearly, this commenter is working with the terrorists.

While that link is not quite long enough to “break” the comments section, you get the idea. We want the links embedded, much as they appear EVERYWHERE ELSE ON THE INTERTRON. In fact, the comments even have a handy tool to do just that with relative ease.

Below is a “virgin” comment box. As it is, there is just the box for you to type your comment, and nothing else. However, if you will notice, there appears to be a cryptic button in the upper left corner of the comment box with a RED ARROW pointing to it.


*** CAUTION *** This is just a simulation. Red arrow is not present in actual comment boxes.

Click on that button, and you will see the following:


Do the wonders of the intertron ever cease? Clicking on that button made a bunch more buttons magically appear.

As you can see, there are now a number of formatting options available to you in your comment box. Time to start entering our comment.


You can actually write anything you want there, but I wanted to display my allegiance to the fifth column folks at NPR.

Once your comment is entered, highlight it.


Yawn.

Once you have your comment highlighted, as illustrated above, look at the bar filled with formatting options and click on the “Link” button.


True patriots click when they are told.

Once you have clicked on the link button with your text highlighted, a window will appear. This does not always look the same in every browser, but they are remarkably similar. Here is what it looks like in Firefox.


I wonder if that ‘http://’ is a hint?

In the area provided for you to enter text, enter the url of the hyperlink you wish to share with all of us.


Cut and paste your link here, foolio. Or just type it in manually, if you so desire.

Once you have done that, click ok. As you will soon observe, your comment now appears to have a bunch of formatting. Don’t panic. That is a good thing. It should look like this:


ZOMG look at all that hypertechnical formatting! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria.

Once you are done with your comment, click on “Submit Comment” and you should then see the following, complete with a perfectly embedded hyperlink.


As the cheese eating surrender monkeys would say, “VOILA!”

See! That wasn’t too hard. Be a good Bundes, use your training, and embed your links.

Or the terrorists win.

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    srv

    Since 99% of the folks miss the button, I’ve always assumed the tags button does not have an adjustable default (expanded) in WordPress.

    WordPress defect or admin error?

  2. 2.

    Billy K

    Or you could just type (a href = “http://www.npr.org/templates/story.php?storyId=162”) I was listening to NPR(/a)

    I know how to do two things in HTML and this is one, so I’m gonna use it, dammit. I guess I’m old fashioned.

    But thanks, John, for thinking about the tarrists.

  7. 7.

    Zifnab

    P.S. God, Firefox is ugly.

    It’s not Firefox, it’s the abysmal Apple Interface. Did I mention that Apple sucks? Cause Apple sucks.

    :-p

  8. 8.

    Dreggas

    You forgot something wise ass, tell them to put Target=”_new” inside the tag after the URL but before the “>” that way the link opens in a new window and there’s no need to use the back button.

  9. 9.

    scarshapedstar

    I’m gonna take this occasion to be uber leet and s   p   a   c   e stuff out for the hell of it.

  10. 10.

    EJ

    I’d always put links in by hand, and I always wondered why sometimes there are bad embedded links formatted like “http://http://www.blahblah.com”. Now I know.

  12. 12.

    Buck

    This is wonderful information to have.

    On a number of occassions I have seen John piss and moan about correctly embedding links because he was getting “goddamn tired of doing it for you” but when he said to “click the button in the upper left corner” I was always left meandering around up where it says PajamasMedia and never could find the button!

    Needless to say I have never even tried to embed or even cut and paste a link.

    I’ve always been kinda scared of John.

  13. 13.

    Bombadil

    So, John has gone from someone who can’t figure out how to use Google to learn how to screen-print on a Mac to someone lecturing about imbedding links in postings (with 8×10 color glossies, no less), all in one morning.

    Is there no end to this man’s learning power?

  14. 14.

    jcricket

    *** CAUTION *** This is just a simulation. Red arrow is not present in actual comment boxes.

    So you admit to misrepresenting the actual situation? Is that like all your “fake but accurate” reporting about Iraq?

    I bet you have a backpack too, and sit on benches. I’ve seen the Tancredo commercial. I know what you’re up to!

  15. 15.

    Jake

    Excellent, is there a way to put this as a tutorial in the sidebar?

    You forgot something wise ass, tell them to put Target=”_new” inside the tag after the URL but before the “>” that way the link opens in a new window and there’s no need to use the back button.

    Or the user could just right click and select open in New Window (Tab if using FFx).

  17. 17.

    jnfr

    Do not, please for the love of all that is chocolate, start using code in your links to force new pages to open. Using the back button is perfectly proper web protocol. Opening separate pages makes baby Jesus cry.

  22. 22.

    Nash

    With one unembedded link, Punchy goes in for self-parody or insufficient self-awareness.

    I like it either way.

  23. 23.

    Dreggas

    jnfr Says:

    Do not, please for the love of all that is chocolate, start using code in your links to force new pages to open. Using the back button is perfectly proper web protocol. Opening separate pages makes baby Jesus cry.

    I like making baby jesus cry, and having to leave the site I am on (in the same browser) is kinda annoying to me, one reason I like Atrios’ little check box to open links in a new window.

  24. 24.

    Dreggas

    Jake Says:

    Or the user could just right click and select open in New Window (Tab if using FFx).

    True,

    I was just making it easier for the less tech savvy or more lazy.

  25. 25.

    capelza

    I have Safari..how is it different than Firefox.

    I really, really like Safari except for one thing netscape did. In all the places I had to log in, it always remembered my name and password. Safari doesn’t do that, unless someone knows the secret.

    Please be patient, I am so old I got my degree using a typewriter and white out. Tech savvy not, I am.

  26. 26.

    John Cole

    one reason I like Atrios’ little check box to open links in a new window.

    Are you people blind?

    Check this website out again. Pay close attention to the portion in the top right hand corner, underneath the graphic, where it says:

    “Check here to open links in new window.”

    Funny, that.

  28. 28.

    jnfr

    I’m perfectly capable of opening a new page when I want to, and so are you!

    I just wish John would let us embed images. That would rock.

  29. 29.

    mk

    Okay. But, I still think tinyurl is an easier way to accomplish a link that doesn’t break the thread.

  31. 31.

    Rudi

    You have really turned into a Liberal. Macs and Firefox aren’t “free market friendly”. Even though he’s a Librul, Billy Gates won’t make billions more off of YOUR types at this DU type blog.

  32. 32.

    Tony J

    Using the back button is perfectly proper web protocol. Opening separate pages makes baby Jesus cry.

    It certainly makes me cry. My PC is so old she gets all autistic and crashy when I have too many windows open.

    Thanks for the tutorial, John. I use most of the tags but had always viewed the Link option as something I didn’t quite get and was too chicken to actually ask about.

    And since I now know how…

    Why, oh why do people that having this as your State Flag might be considered ‘racist’?

  33. 33.

    Tony J

    Oh.

    Need more work on Phase One, methinks. There should be a “think” before the “That”.

    Sad sigh.

  34. 34.

    Tony J

    And “That” should be “that”.

    Yet again, life shits on my eiderdown. Thank you very much drink and drugs.

  39. 39.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    I never noticed the button and was wondering why you didn’t have a tool bar. All this time I’ve been typing in the code manually… Duh.

    Ditto.

    But I just used the button, and avoided having to type the word “blockquote”! Hooray!

  40. 40.

    Punchy

    Myself PC is so old she and gets all autistic and crashy when I have too many windows open things to write.

    Fixed, apparently, for Tony J. :)

  42. 42.

    Face

    I never noticed the button and was wondering why you didn’t have a tool bar

    Heh. And all this time I thought “a tool bar” was where the frat guys drank.

    ‘Puters are silly.

  43. 43.

    jcricket

    Heh. And all this time I thought “a tool bar” was where the frat guys drank.

    No, a tool bar is where all the right wing pundits and talking heads hang out. Ba-dum-bump.

  44. 44.

    UnkyT

    P.S. God, Firefox is ugly.

    In its standard form, kinda. But there are many many skins available for it that make it much better looking. My current fav is iFox Smooth

  45. 45.

    RSA

    I really, really like Safari except for one thing netscape did. In all the places I had to log in, it always remembered my name and password. Safari doesn’t do that, unless someone knows the secret.

    Have you tried opening up Preferences (under the Safari menu), clicking on the AutoFill icon, and checking the box “User names and passwords”?

    By the way, very nice tutorial, John.

  50. 50.

    MNPundit

    You want Hyperlinks? Here’s the post I wrote for the morning after the November Elections, crowning myself the King Nerd of the Internets.

    “As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron, orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved, ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope.”

    –JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

  52. 52.

    Tony J

    Fixed, apparently, for Tony J.

    I now go wash dishes. I know my place.

    Soft weeping, interspersed with occasional clinking and some splashing.

  54. 54.

    Tax Analyst

    Thanks for the clue, John. I needed one. I had to copy & paste it to a word doc so I can print and then look it over under my nose instead of on-screen since I don’t really have a handle on it so far. I’ll refrain from linking until I can frigure it out.

    It’s a good thing they have other people here at work help customers deal with navigation and tool bar functions and such crap. Much of it still mystifies me.

  55. 55.

    Jake

    one reason I like Atrios’ little check box to open links in a new window.

    Err. BJ’s gots one o’ them too. Check the upper-right.

  56. 56.

    Mithi

    As a rule I have JavaScript disabled so I can’t actually see (or use) the formatting button. Might consider putting a link to a rundown of available code by the comment box, or just a message that JS needs to be enabled in order to easily use advanced features.

  61. 61.

    Rick Taylor

    I embed links whenver I can, but sometimes it doesn’t seem to work. I embed the link, and everything after the link doesn’t show up in my post.

    Here’s an example. These sentences come before the link.I’ll write more sentences after, but neither the link nor the sentences after the link will appear.

    The link

    And now here’s stuff after the link that doesn’t appear.

  63. 63.

    RSA

    I didn’t appear in preview mode, but did when I actually posted it.

    On my platform, that mostly happens with URLs that include characters like question marks, and unpredictably otherwise. It posts fine, though. (Do ordered lists work, or am I remembering incorrectly? Here goes:

    This
    is
    a
    test.

    Looks fine in preview.)

  65. 65.

    Bombadil

    Ok never mind. I didn’t appear in preview mode, but did when I actually posted it.

    Don’t know why it works, but if you hit “enter” one last time after the last line of your post, you will generally see everything formatted in Preview.

  68. 68.

    mk

    Delia, thanks for the opportunity to test John’s tutorial myself.

    I doubt John would be angry with you if you chose to go the tinyurl route. The directions are really easy to follow. You can embed the tinyurl link in your browser’s tool bar. Coupled with screen tabs, you can get a 200 character link tamed with a couple of mouse clicks. And, I suspect it will be a while before the terrorists win if you go that route.

  69. 69.

    wvng

    just testing, with an interesting link. Anonymous Liberal says:

    According to officials cited in the article, it’s not clear whether suitcase-sized nuclear weapons have ever existed. Apparently, the U.S. at one time produced a device that could be carried in a large backpack (and required two people to detonate), but they’ve all been destroyed. And the Russians were long rumored to have created such a device, but no one has ever seen one.

    Moreover, such a device would apparently be incredibly difficult and expensive to make and would, at best, only be operable for a period of months (eventually the radiation would fry the circuitry).

  72. 72.

    Tim F.

    I doubt John would be angry with you if you chose to go the tinyurl route.

    That won’t fly. I basically don’t click a link unless I can tell where it goes. For that reason I dislike TinyURL, discourage its use and don’t ever plan on clicking through any.

  73. 73.

    Libby Spencer

    But I just used the button, and avoided having to type the word “blockquote”! Hooray!

    That’s the one I hate to do manually too. It’s such a long word. I can embed URLs in my sleep and in fact usually do it manually because it’s so automatic that I find it’s faster than clicking through the tool bar but otherwise I’m a lousy typist and it really saves time to use the buttons for everything else.

    Besides I like learning new stuff. I bet some of the other places I hang out where there aren’t tool bars have this same button. This could change my world.

  74. 74.

    Punchy

    According to officials cited in the article, it’s not clear whether suitcase-sized nuclear weapons have ever existed.

    I nevah thougt this was about an actual nuclear bomb in a suitcase. I think it’s about wrapping radioactive material, such as polonium or uranium, amongst a bloc of C4 or some such shtuff.

    IOW, why the direct damage would be minimal, the fear of radiation sickness and such would cripple a city and bring every trial lawyer a fortune.

  75. 75.

    tBone

    One of my pet peeves is when you all put hyperlinks in the comments section, but do not embed them.

    One of my pet peeves is when you use the phrase “you all” to refer to a subset of commenters. We all hate that.

  78. 78.

    Billy K

    It’s not Firefox, it’s the abysmal Apple Interface. Did I mention that Apple sucks? Cause Apple sucks.

    Wrong again. Every Mac browser I’ve used looks great, except Firefox. Mozilla even admitted it looks like crap (actually it looks like a Windows app) and said they’re gonna fix it in v3.

    Your hatred for Apple only makes me stronger.

  79. 79.

    Billy K

    Are you people blind?

    Check this website out again. Pay close attention to the portion in the top right hand corner, underneath the graphic, where it says:

    “Check here to open links in new window.”

    Funny, that.

    Apparently I am. I’ve been coming here for about two years. The last year I’ve visited every day. I’ve never seen that box. Thanks for telling me, cause I strongly prefer to open links in a new window.

    It’s hard to find one line of 8-point text in your site design.

  80. 80.

    mk

    S’okay, Tim. I agree, that’s a problem with tinyurl. Because it’s a problem, when I use it, I tend to announce the link: title, author, site, and tinyurl as a blockquote. True, if you don’t know the commenter, you take a risk that they’re spoofing you into something nasty. But, where I seem to have no problem following John’s tutorial in Mozilla, for some reason, like Delia, I’m having trouble making it work in Firefox. But John gets to set site rules. And, I’m happy to follow them. Does make it tough on Delia, however.

  85. 85.

    Zuzu

    Hey, I bacame a patriot after all those traitorous screw ups along the way! Thanks.

    But I have to tell ya it’s been heck on wheels figuring out the link thing. I’d hit the “link” button, enter the url, etc., submit, hit the “/link” button, but no hyperlink. Other variations left me with disappearing text or all sorts of headscratchers.

    Finally I figured out to enter the name of the link after the end of the url and before the close link, like this: html”>Name of Link

    Presto zesto, a hyperlink !!!!

  86. 86.

    Zuzu

    Dreggas says: You forgot something wise ass, tell them to put Target=”_new” inside the tag after the URL but before the “>” that way the link opens in a new window and there’s no need to use the back button

    Hmm, my link box just asks if I want an external link or not.

  89. 89.

    Krista

    Apparently I am. I’ve been coming here for about two years. The last year I’ve visited every day. I’ve never seen that box. Thanks for telling me, cause I strongly prefer to open links in a new window.

    It’s hard to find one line of 8-point text in your site design.

    No shit. I never noticed it either. Then again, I don’t pay attention to the ads, either.

    BTW, what’s the diff between Link and Ext. Link?

  90. 90.

    Krista

    Zuzu, evidently extreme emotion is frowned upon. Any more than two (I think) exclamation or question marks, and it does that.

    Let’s test it…

    Holy crap!
    Holy crap!!
    Holy crap!!!
    Holy crap!!!!

  94. 94.

    maxbaer (not the original)

    Thanks for the tutorial, John. I see a post mentioning Big Audio Dynamite the other day. Here’s some pre-BAD. I hope!

  96. 96.

    Andy K

    John, is there anywhere that I can nominate ya fer “Most Helpful Blog Entry”. ‘Cause, goddammit, I’ve been tryin’ to figure out how to do that fer a long, long time. My kid was no help(trust me, he went to bed with no dinner fer quite awhile) and I’ve been too ashamed to ask fer help.

  98. 98.

    Bob Smith

    Very good tutorial, just one question

    Where is the highlight button?

    C’mon, someone had to say it.

  104. 104.

    RSA

    Entities are automatically converted.

    Yes, automatic conversion is a bit of a pain. For example, it’s hard (impossible?) to include stuff that looks like an HTML tag. Here’s what should work:

    ampersand lt semicolon bogus tag ampersand gt semicolon: <bogus tag>

    But it doesn’t. And if I use hex codes, the software just ignores my post altogether.

  105. 105.

    crack

    crack Says:

    Am I doin’ right?
    https://balloon-juice.com/?p=9094#comment-430484

    November 13th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    No.

    Oddly enough this example shows a problem with embedding links, they are lost in copypasta. The ? in the original was an embedded link. Is there a quoting function that’s available to quote comments and include links?

    Oh, and I second Tim F.’s sentiment on tinyurl, impossible to know what your getting sent to. A goatse dream. I only use tiny at Delong’s place because i can’t embed there.

  106. 106.

    Delia

    Well, I can’t embed here, apparently. So if I need to use a link, I’ll have to use tiny and leave a hint about the content.

  107. 107.

    CalD

    I usually just type the code for the links right in my post, since that works for almost any blog and most don’t have helpful formatting buttons like Balloon Juice. (Why can’t all blogs be Balloon Juice?) It’s really easy.

    All you have to remember is the basic open tag for a hyperlink:

    <a href=””>

    and of course, the close tag:

    </a>

    Then type some text between the two tags for your link label, like this:

    <a href=””>Balloon Juice</a>

    Then past the address (URL) for the page you want to link to right between the two quote marks in the open tag, like this:

    <a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/ “>Balloon Juice</a>

    And voila, it comes out looking like this after you hit the submit button:

    Balloon Juice

    Simple.

  108. 108.

    CalD

    Awe, bummer. Damned thing parsed my tag examples. And I thought I had coded them so cleverly. I’ll try one more thing.

    First the basic open tag for a hyperlink:
    <a href="">

    and of course, the close tag:

    </a>

    Then you type some text between the two tags for your link label, like this:

    <a href=""> Balloon Juice </a>

    Then past the address (URL) for the page you want to link to right between the two quote marks in the open tag, like this:

    <a href="https://balloon-juice.com/">Balloon Juice </a>

    And voila, it comes out looking like this after you hit the submit button:

    Balloon Juice

    Simple (I hope).

  109. 109.

    CalD

    Better. But since I’ve already made this big a mess already…

    Basic open tag for a hyperlink:

    <a href="">

    Close tag for a hyperlink:

    </a>

    Add the link label text:

    <a href=""> Balloon Juice </a>

    Paste the URL between the quotes in the open tag:

    <a href="https://balloon-juice.com/"> Balloon Juice </a>

    Finished link:

    Balloon Juice

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