About absolute and relative URLs

When you enter a URL in the URL panel, you can enter an absolute or relative URL:

• If you are linking to a web page that is beyond your own website, you must use an absolute URL.
• If you are linking to a web page within your website, you can use an absolute URL or a relative URL.

Absolute URLs are complete URLs that include the server protocol, which is usually http:// for web pages. For example, http://www.macromedia.com/support/fireworks is the absolute URL for the Adobe Fireworks Support web page. Absolute URLs remain accurate regardless of the location of the source document, but they do not link correctly if the target document is moved.

Relative URLs are relative to the folder containing the source document. These examples show the navigation syntax of relative URLs:

• file.htm links to a file located in the same folder as the source document.
• ../../file.htm links to a file located in the folder two levels above the folder containing the source document. Each ../ represents one level.
• htmldocs/file.htm links to a file located in a folder named htmldocs, which is in the folder containing the source document.

Relative URLs are usually the simplest ones to use for links to files that will always remain in the same folder as the current document.