Internet Explorer Introduction

When you start Internet Explorer, the page that appears automatically is your "Home Page". Unless you choose a home page yourself, your network or Internet service provider chooses your home page, or you see Microsoft's home page.

If you're viewing your home page for the first time, explore it. If clicking something takes you to a different page, click the Back button on your toolbar to retrace your steps.

Some pages are divided into rectangular areas called frames. Each frame can display other pages.

To refresh the current page, or get the most up-to-date version:

Click the Refresh button on your toolbar.

To view more than one page at a time:

From the File menu, choose New, then Window.

At first, the new page displayed is a copy of your home page, but you can use it to view a different page by typing in a new URL (address) in the address field.

Moving to Another Page

You move to a new page by typing its URL location (address) on the Web.

1. Open the File menu and choose Open.

2. Type the new URL, then click OK.

Shortcut: Click the Address field, type the URL, and press Enter.

To move by clicking a link:

1. Move the mouse until it changes to a pointing finger. This happens whenever the pointer is over a link.

2. Click the link once. While the network locates the page the link points to, status messages appear at the bottom of the window.

To move to related pages:

Click Tools and then click Show Related Links. A new section will open to the right with related links to check out.

If you change your mind and don't want to view a page, click the Stop button in the toolbar.

Retracing Your Steps

To view the previous page:

Click the Back (or Forward) button in the toolbar.

To view a page whose URL you recently typed in the address field:

Click the down-pointing arrow at the right end of the address field, and choose from the pop-up menu.

Retracing Your Steps in Detail: The History List

Internet Explorer maintains a history list of pages you've viewed recently, as determined by your preferences. Click on the History button located on the tool bar. A window will appear on the right with a list of past web pages that you've visited. To view a page, click on the link that you want to see.

Sorting the History List:

Click on the History icon on the toolbar and then choose how you'd like to sort your history list.

Searching the History List:

Click on the Search button located on top of your history list. Enter a keyword in the Search for: box and click Search Now. Pages matching your search criteria are listed.

To use the search results:

Click a link on the list to go to that web site.

Viewing a Page's Source Code

To view the HTML and other code that generates a web page:

From the View menu, choose Source. The source code will be displayed in your default text editor, such as Notepad.

Searching Within a Page

To find text within the page you're currently viewing:

1. From the Edit menu, choose Find on this Page. If the page you're viewing contains frames, you may need to click within a frame first.

2. Type the text you want to find in the Find what box.

3. Select the Match case checkbox if capital letters should be matched.

4. Select Up or Down to search from the beginning or end of the page. If there 's a current selection, the search begins at the selection and doesn't wrap around to the beginning of the page.

5. Click Find Next to begin the search.

To find the same word or phrase again:

Click Find Next again.

Keeping Your Favorite Web Sites

Creating a Favorite:

To keep a web page:

1. Go to the web page you want to keep.

2. Click Favorites.

3. Choose Add to Favorites.

4. Type a name to remember it by, or keep the one provided for it.

5. Check the box marked Make Available Offline if you want to view it when you're not connected to the Internet.

6. Click OK.

Noge: Some of the favorites are provided by default with the Internet Explorer.

To revisit a favorite web page:

1. Click Favorites.

2. Choose the Favorite you'd like to see and then click on it.

Creating an Internet Shortcut

An Internet shortcut lets you jump to a web page from your desktop or from folders on your computer. There are a few ways to create Internet shortcuts.

To create a shortcut for the current web page:

Drag the Internet Explorer icon to the desktop.

Can't find the Internet Explorer icon? It's located between the word Address and the URL of the website entered in the Address bar.

For Internet Explorer 7.x: It is located towards the left of the URL entered in the Address bar.

To create a shortcut using the favorites list:

1. Click Favorites.

2. Drag the Favorite you want to the desktop.

You can drag a shortcut into any folder on your computer.

Organizing Your Favorites

Reordering Favorites

Click Favorites and choose Organize Favorites. Drag any favorite, folder, or separator to reposition it. You can also drag and drop Favorites into folders.

Use the menu on the left to help with the editing of your Favorites list.

Deleting Favorites

Click Favorites and choose Organize Favorites.
Click to select a favorite, press Delete button.

Adding Folders

1. Click Favorites and choose Organize Favorites.

2. Click the item just above where you want to put a new folder.

3. Click the Create Folder button to create a new folder.
For Internet Explorer 7.x: Click the New Folder button to create a new folder.

4. Type a name for the folder and click OK
For Internet Explorer 7.x: Click Done.

Quickly Filing Favorites

To file Favorites as you create them, do one of the following:

1. Drag the favorite icon to the Favorites window. Drop the favorite where you want it in the list.

To change information for any current Favorite or Favorite folder:

1.Click Favorites and choose Organize Favorites.

2. Select a favorite or favorite folder.

3. Click Rename.

4. To make a change, type a new name or URL. (The URL field is greyed out if a folder is selected.)

5. Click OK.

Copying a Page

To copy some text from a page:

1. Select the text.

2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.

You can paste the text into other files.

To copy a link (URL) from a page:

1. Right-click the link or image to display a pop-up menu.

2. Select Save Target As or Copy Shortcut. If an image is also a link, you're offered both options.

You can paste the link into other files or Explorer's Address field.

Saving a Page

To save an entire page:

Choose Save As from the File menu.

Saving a file onto your hard disk lets you view the page (or its HTML code) when you're not connected to the Internet.


To save an image from a page:

1. Right-click the image to display a pop-up menu.

2. Select Save Target As or Save Picture As.

To save a page without displaying it (useful for retrieving a non-formatted page, like a data file, that's not intended for viewing):

1. Right-click the link to display a pop-up menu.

2. Select Save Target As.

Important: Some links automatically download and save files to disk after you click them. The URLs for these links often begin with "ftp" or end with a file-type suffix such as "au" or "MPEG". These links might transmit software, sound or movie files, and can launch helper applications that support the files.

Printing a Page

To print the current page:

Click on the File menu and select the Print option.

To set up the page layout for printing (optional):

1. From the File menu, choose Page Setup.

2. Choose page layout options, including header and footer information.

Important: Internet Explorer formats content according to the size of the printed page, not the size of the onscreen window. Text is word-wrapped and graphics are repositioned to accommodate paper size.

Customizing the Toolbars

Changing What's Displayed on Toolbar Buttons:

1. Open the View menu and choose Toolbars.

2. Click on the desired Toolbar that you wish to see.

Moving a Toolbar or Toolbar Button

Drag a toolbar tab or button to another toolbar position and drop it.

Changing Fonts

You can specify which fonts and font sizes to use to display web pages in your browser. You can also select character-set encoding.

1. Open the Tools menu and choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab click on Fonts.

3. Choose your default fonts from the pop-up menus.

Changing Colors or Backgrounds

To set the color of page text and background:

1. Open the Tools menu and choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab choose Colors.

3. Click a color button to change colors of text, background, unvisited links or visited links.

4. Click Use Windows colors to restore the original colors.

Specifying the Starting Page

The home page is displayed when you click the Home button and is normally your starting page-- the first page displayed when Internet Explorer starts.

To choose a new home page:

1. Open the page you want to use as your home page.

2. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

3. On the General tab you'll see a section titled Home Page.

4. Click on the Use Current button select the current page as your home page.

To choose a starting page other than your home page:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. On the General tab you'll see a section titled Home Page.

3. In the text box type in the address of the page you want to be your home page (for example: www.netzero.net).

Specifying How Long to Track History

You can specify when the color of a visited link reverts to the color of an unvisited link, and how long page-visit information is tracked in the History window.

To change the link properties

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, you'll see a section titled History.

3. Type a number of days in the field labeled Days to keep pages in history. When the specified number of days elapse, the color of a visited link reverts to the color of an unvisited link, page visits in the History window for the specified number of days.

For Internet Explorer 7.x:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, click Settings in Browsing history section.

3. Type a number of days in the field labeled Days to keep pages in history under the History section in Temporary Internet Files and History Settings.

Note: When the specified number of days elapse, the color of a visited link reverts to the color of an unvisited link, page visits are recorded in the History window for the specified number of days.

To clear the History window:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, you'll see a section titled History.

3. Click on the Clear History button.

Clearing the History helps protect privacy, but also makes it harder for you to retrace your steps.

For Internet Explorer 7.x:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, click Delete in Browsing History section.

3. Click on the Delete history button under History section in Delete Browsing History window.

Deleting the History helps protect privacy, but also makes it harder for you to retrace your steps.

Setting Proxy Values

Many organizations block access from the Internet to their networks. This prevents outside parties from gaining access to sensitive information. The protection is called a Firewall.

If your organization has a firewall, Internet Explorer may need to go through a proxy server before connecting you to the Internet. The proxy server prevents outsiders from breaking into your organization's private network.

Before you start:

If there's a proxy configuration file at your workplace, ask the system administrator for its URL. If there's no proxy configuration file, ask your system administrator for the names and port numbers of the servers running proxy software for each network service.

To set Internet Explorer to work with the proxy:

1. From Tools choose Internet Options.

2. Click the Connections tab at the top.

3. Select LAN Settings.

4. Click Use a Proxy Server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections).

5. Enter the Address and Port number provided to you by your Network Administrator

6. To configure proxy settings for specific protocols, click the Advanced button and enter the Address and the Port numbers for each protocol provided by your Network Administrator.

• Details: Your computer may connect to several different servers (computers that handle networking matters). Each server handles a specific type of network service, such as communicating with HTTP sites or dealing with security. For each server, your manual configuration must specify which server runs the proxy software.

• Under Advanced, type the name or numeric IP address of the proxy server for each type of server (HTTP, Secure, FTP, Gopher, and Socks). Often a single proxy server handles the three major types of server: HTTP, FTP, and Gopher.

  For Internet Explorer 7.x: The servers available are HTTP, Secure, FTP, and Socks.
  
  

• Under Port type each proxy server's port number.

• Under Exceptions, type the names of any domains that you can connect to directly, bypassing the proxy. For example, if you type microsoft.com, then the proxy is bypassed each time you view a web page from microsoft.com.

  Domain names are the part of a URL that contains the name of an organization, business, or school -- such as netscape.com or washington.org. If you use local host names without the domain name, list them the same way. Use commas to separate multiple hostnames. The wildcard character [*] cannot be used.
  

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Improving Speed, Efficiency and Privacy

Automatic Loading

When you bring a web page to your screen, Internet Explorer automatically loads (starts up) several features that help interpret web pages. These features can make web pages livelier, but they take time to load.

To turn off automatic loading:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Click the Advanced tab.

3. To speed things up, deselect one or more of the options listed in the scroll down menu.

Handling Cookies

A Cookie is a small amount of information that a web site copies to your hard disk. A cookie can help a web site identify you the next time you visit. For instance, if you shop for books online, the bookstore's web site might use a cookie to store information about your favorite subjects, and later use that information to recommend particular books.

To control your computer's behavior with respect to cookies:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Click the Security tab.

3. Make sure that you have selected the Internet icon under Select a web content zone to specify its security settings.

4. Click on the Custom Level button.

5. Scroll down in the Settings window and select the option for Cookies you desire.

Important: In most cases, Enable cookies is the best choice. Otherwise choose Disable cookies, which means that your computer will not send a cookie to a server that did not originate it.

6. If you want to be notified when Internet Explorer accepts a cookie, check Prompt.

Changing Cache Settings

Your computer stores copies of frequently accessed pages in the memory cache or disk cache. This way, the computer doesn't have to retrieve the page from the network each time you view it.

To clear Temporary Internet Files

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, you will see a section titled Temporary Internet Files.

3. Either click on the Settings button and specify when your Temporary Internet Files will be automatically cleared or you can just click on the Delete Files button and they will be cleared instantaneously.

For Internet Explorer 7.x:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, you will see a section titled Browsing history.

3. Click on the Settings button and specify when your Temporary Internet Files be automatically cleared.

4. Also, you can click on the Delete button under Browsing history and select Delete files from Temporary Internet Files section to clear them instantaneously.

Important: A larger memory cache allows more data to be quickly retrieved. However, if you don't have enough memory on your computer, clear your Temporary Internet Files regularly to free up your computer's memory space.

To specify how often Internet Explorer checks the network for page revisions (so that you don't keep stale pages in the cache too long):

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, you will see a section titled Temporary Internet Files.

3. Click on the Settings button.

4. Here you can Check for newer versions of stored pages. Choose from the following options:

• Every visit to the page
• Every time you start Internet Explorer
• Automatically
• Never

For Internet Explorer 7.x:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options.

2. Under the General tab, select Browsing history.

3. Click on Settings.

4. Choose from the following Check for newer versions of stored pages options:

• Every visit to the page
• Every time you start Internet Explorer
• Automatically
• Never

To refresh a page at any time:

Click Refresh. The computer checks the network to make sure you have the latest version of the page. To retrieve a fresh copy of a page regardless of what's in the cache, hold down the Shift key and click Refresh.

If pages that should be in the cache are taking longer to appear than they should, make sure the preference is not set to Every Time, since the verification requires a network connection that takes time.