Web Browsing: Using Bookmarks
When you find Web pages that are particularly useful, you should bookmark them. Bookmarks enable you to save your favorite pages and go to them easily at a later time.
These instructions explain how to create and manage bookmarks in Firefox on Macintosh OS X. Faculty and student computers at Pike also include another Web browser, called Safari, which works in similar ways, and you can use these instructions as a starting place for using bookmarks in Safari as well.
Using Bookmarks
Creating Bookmarks on the Toolbar
Creating Bookmarks in the Menu
Creating Bookmarks in Folders
Renaming Bookmarks
Deleting Bookmarks
Changing the Order of Bookmarks
- These instructions assume that you've already created a bookmark. (See the instructions below.)
- Pull down the Bookmarks menu.
- Click a bookmark to go to that page on the Web.
- Or ... click a folder, and then click the desired bookmark within the folder. (More about folders below.)
Tip!
Even if you've never used bookmarks before, you'll find some on your Bookmarks menu that Firefox has prepared for you.
- Go to a Web page that you find useful (for example, http://www.lii.org).
- If this is a Web site you access very frequently, you drag it to your Toolbar.
Tip!
To drag to your toolbar: Move the mouse over the small world icon to the left of the address http://www.lii.org. Press and hold the mouse button, and drag the world icon onto the toolbar below. Release the mouse button. Firefox will add a new link entitled Librarian's Internet Index to your toolbar.
- Using the bookmark. Later, you can go to this page simply by clicking the new Toolbar link.
- Deleting the bookmark. To remove a link from your Toolbar, press ctrl and click the link to remove. A menu appears. Click Delete.
Menu
- Go to a Web page that you find useful (for example, http://www.lii.org).
- Pull down the Bookmark menu and click Bookmark This Page...
- Firefox displays the Bookmark dialog box, where you can change the name of the bookmark and decide where to save it. The simplest thing to do is simply to click the Add button.
Tip!
- When adding a bookmark, you can change the bookmark name that Firefox is suggesting by typing a new name before clicking the Add button. (After you add, the bookmark you can change the name by using the Organize Bookmarks... option on the Bookmarks menu. See Changing the Order of Bookmarks, below.)
- If you want to organize your bookmarks in a specific way (and not simply add the bookmark at the end of the Bookmark menu), see Changing the Order of Bookmarks, below.
- Go to a Web page that you find useful (for example, http://www.lii.org).
- Pull down the Bookmark menu and click Bookmark This Page...
- Click the down-pointing arrow to the right of Bookmarks to display a list of folders.
- If you want to save your new bookmark into an existing folder, click the folder name. Then click Add.
- If you want to save your bookmark into a new folder, click New Folder to create a folder. Firefox displays a dialog box like the one below. Type a name in the Name: area and click OK. Firefox returns you to the folder list you saw previously, with your new folder selected. Click Add to add your bookmark to the new folder.
- To use your new bookmark, see Using Bookmarks.
- To rename bookmarks, pull down the Bookmark menu and click Organize Bookmarks...
- Firefox displays a new window like the one below:
- On the left, click Bookmarks.
- On the right, click the bookmark to rename. Or, if the bookmark is inside a folder, click the right-pointing arrow next to the folder name until it drops down to display the bookmarks inside; then click the bookmark to rename.
- Click the Rename button in the top toolbar. Firefox displays a new window like the one below. Type a new name and click OK.
- To delete bookmarks, pull down the Bookmark menu and click Organize Bookmarks...
- Firefox displays a new window like the one above.
- On the left, click Bookmarks.
- On the right, click the bookmark to delete. Or, if the bookmark is inside a folder, click the right-pointing arrow next to the folder name until it drops down to display the bookmarks inside; then click the bookmark to delete.
- Click the Delete button in the top toolbar. Firefox displays a new window like the one below. Type a new name and click OK.
- To sort bookmarks in alphabetical order, see http://www.macworld.com/article/133407/2008/05/alphafirefoxbookmarks.html.
- To drag bookmarks one-at-a-time into a new order, pull down the Bookmarks menu and click Organize Bookmarks... On the left, click Bookmarks. On the right, click the folder you want to move. Then drag the folder to a new location. Close the Organize Bookmarks window by clicking the red dot at the top left (or the x at the top right on a Windows computer).