Linking and Navigation > About document locations and paths

About document locations and paths

Understanding the file path between the document you're linking from and the document you're linking to is essential to creating links.

Each Web page has a unique address, called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). (For detailed information on URLs, see the World Wide Web Consortium's page on naming and addressing.) However, when you create a local link (a link from one document to another on the same site), you generally don't specify the entire URL of the document you're linking to; instead, you specify a relative path from the current document or from the site's root folder. The following are the three types of link paths:

	Absolute paths (such as http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/contents.html). See Absolute paths.
	Document-relative paths (such as dreamweaver/contents.html). See Document-relative paths.
	Root-relative paths (such as /support/dreamweaver/contents.html). See Root-relative paths.

Using Dreamweaver, you can easily select the type of document path to create for your links. See Linking documents using the Property inspector and the Point-to-File icon.

Note: It is best to use the type of linking you prefer and are most comfortable with, either site or document relative. Browsing to links, as opposed to typing in the paths, ensures that you always enter the right path.