The Bookmark feature (sometimes called the Favorites List) found on all current web browsers makes it possible to easily "bookmark" a location on the web for future reference. Click on the bookmark is all that is required to return to the exact location of the desired webpage. Navigation on the web couldn’t be any easier.

However, if you are like most web users, your bookmarks can quickly become an unmanageable list that scrolls on forever, making it nearly as difficult to find your way back to that wonderful webpage as it was to find in the first place. Fortunately web browsers have some powerful editing features that make managing your web resources a relatively simple matter.

The web resources you bookmark will quickly degenerate into an disorganized mess unless you regularly edit them.

The following step-by-step instructions are written for the Netscape Navigator Web Browser.  If you are using Internet Explorer, you can find instructions for editing your Favorites List in the Help Files.

The Netscape Bookmark window offers some powerful editing features which make that the editing process an easy matter. Give it a try…

1. Open Netscape.
2. Open the Bookmarks Window (Ctrl-B or Command-B).
3. Your bookmarks will appear in the window.
4. Click and hold the mouse button while you drag the bookmark to a new position in the list. You will notice a black line that indicates where the bookmark will be placed when you release the mouse button.
5. Practice moving your bookmarks.

Don’t worry about experimenting with editing your bookmarks. You can always go back into the bookmark window and use the edit features to rearrange the changes you have made.

In additon to rearranging the order of your bookmarks, you can add separators that will assist you in organizing your bookmarks. A bookmark separator is a horizontal line that can be used to separate the bookmark list into distinct sections. Try that editing feature now.

1. Open your Netscape bookmarks (Ctrl-B or Command-B)
2. Click once on any bookmark in the window.
3. Navigate to the Item menu and select Insert Separator.
4. You will notice that a series of hyphens has been inserted below the bookmark you originally selected.
5. You can change the location of the separator by selecting it and then dragging it to a new location while holding down the mouse button.
6. When you release the mouse button, the separator will remain in the new location.
7. You can remove a separator you have inserted by clicking once on the separator and then selecting Delete Bookmark from the Edit menu.
8. You can see what the separators look like in your bookmarks list by closing the bookmarks window and clicking on the Bookmarks menu.

Inserting folders and moving bookmarks into these folders is an another useful Netscape bookmark editing feature. Here’s how to do that.

1. Open your Netscape bookmarks (Ctrl-B or Command-B)
2. Click once on any bookmark in the window.
3. Navigate to the Item menu and select Insert Folder.
4. A dialog box will appear asking you to choose a name and description for your folder. Do that now and click on then click on OK.
5. You will notice that a folder has been inserted below the bookmark you originally selected.
6. You can change the location of the folder by selecting it and then dragging it to a new location while holding down the mouse button.
7. When you release the mouse button, the folder will remain in the new location.
8. You can now move bookmarks from the general bookmarks list into the folder you have created.
9. Click once on the bookmark you want to move.
10. Hold the mouse button down while you drag the bookmark to the folder.
11. When you release the mouse button, the bookmark will appear beneath the folder. The bookmark will be indented to indicate that it is in the folder.
12. Close the bookmark window and take a look at how the folder appears in the Bookmark Menu.

You will notice that the folder you added looks similar to your regular bookmarks with the exception of a little arrow that points out to the side. When you select the folder and hold down the mouse button, the bookmarks you placed in the folder will pop out to the side of the original bookmark list.

You have probably noticed that the names of the bookmarks in your list are often not very descriptive of the contents of the webpage they point to. You can edit the title of the bookmark using these steps.

1. Click once on any bookmark in the window.
2. Navigate to the Item menu and select Edit Bookmark.
3. A dialog box will appear on the screen with the current name assigned to the bookmark. Note: This name comes from the title given to the webpage by the webpage designer.
4. Drag across the current bookmark name while holding down the mouse button if the name isn’t already selected.
5. Type a new name for the bookmark. You can name it anything you want but it is probably best to keep the name rather short.
6. You can also add a short description of the bookmark or note the date on which you located the bookmark. This won’t appear on your bookmarks list but will be there if you select the bookmark and return to the Edit Bookmark dialog box.

There are some other useful features available in the Netscape Bookmark window which we won’t cover in this course. You can find more information by clicking on the Help menu of the Netscape Browser. This will take you to Netscape’s online tutorial which has more information about Bookmarks.

website developed by Bob Jost | bjost@josts.net | last modified July 30, 2000
Copyright © 1999 Bob Jost. All rights reserved