| Randy
M. Brooks, Ph.D. Director of the Writing Major My ACI Faculty Development Workshops |
ACI Faculty Development Workshop
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This is a hands-on demonstration workshop on how to convert a text document into hypertext. We will begin by cleaning up a text document for conversion, then bringing it into a web editor. Then we will develop the headings in order to break the text into screen-sized modules, adding hyperlinks to anchors embedded within the page. We will create a top-of-page navigation index to various modules of the text and conclude by adding links for e-mail feedback or to other web locations.
An overview of this process is that we are going to take an existing text file, convert it to an HTML document, and design the necessary hypertext features to fulfill the design goals of orientation, navigation and interaction. This process requires that you clean up the existing text file and note things that will be lost in the conversion process. Then you will chunk the text into appropriate modules, labeling each section clearly so that the reader will maintain orientation throughout. After chunking the text, you will need to build the hyperlinks between the page index and modules and hyperlinks to remote sites.
Guidelines for cleaning up a text document for conversion to a web page:
- Open the document in any word processor.
- SELECT ALL of the text and eliminate all text formatting (italics, bolding, font changes).
- Eliminate spaces between paragraphs made with paragraph returns.
If you must save the word processing file before converting it into the Web Editor, then:
- Choose the SAVE AS command and select the TEXT ONLY format for saving the file.
- Name the file using only lowercase characters and include the .htm or .html suffix.
Direct copy and paste of selected text is the easiest way to bring your document in:
- Use the SELECT ALL command to select all of the text.
- Then do the COPY command under the EDIT menu.
- Open a NEW PAGE in the web page editor software.
- Make sure you are in the editing mode, and click your cursor in the editing window.
- Then do the PASTE command under the EDIT menu.
- Save your file before continuing to work in the web editor.
Or you may also use the FILE OPEN command to open a TEXT ONLY document in a web page editor, but be sure to immediately save the file again so that it will be converted to a true HTML document.
Read through your text file, adding horizontal rules to break sections into shorter modules. Add headings to let the reader immediately understand the chunking of your modules. You may also want to add a "back to top" hyperlink along with the horizontal rules.
Add "anchors" or "targets" to your modules, usually right in front of the appropriate heading. Name your anchors as you place them so that they will be easy to remember or simply name them by order of your chunks within the document.
After you have created all of the necessary chunks and placed anchors, you are ready to create an index to the various parts of your web page. Create this index in a table or as a list at the top of the page. Hyperlinks to anchors are formatted in the "link to" box as "#anchorname" so you simply add the # sign in front of the name of the anchor you want the link to connect to.
Add an anchor called "top" or "index" at the top of the page so that readers can quickly jump back to your index of subject links.
External links can be added by selecting the text to be linked, then adding the URL in the "link to" box. Be sure to hit the return or enter key after typing in the link, so that it will be added to the HTML code.
Links to an e-mail address are done in the same way, but the syntax is "mailto:youremail@address" instead of the URL conventions.