The IE 4toolbar incorporates one-click buttons for the most important browser functions. It also contains the address bar, where you can type in the URL (address) of the web page you want to view. To see all the buttons on an 800X600 display you'll need to drag the sizing control to the left, covering up the address bar.

Alternatively, you can drag the sizing control downwards to create separate, full-width address and toolbars, like this.

Click on the image above to see more details on IE 4's address and tool bars, or choose a topic from the list below, or just read on down the page.

The Address Bar

The address bar enables you to type in the URL (address) of a web page you want to browse. You may not have to use it too often, as you'll arrive at most pages via hyperlinks from other pages, and you can save the URLs of regularly-visited pages as IE Favorites.

Tips for using the address bar:

• When typing URLs there's no need to type the 'http://' part, as IE will insert it for you.
• You can use the clipboard to paste URLs you've cut from other programs - such as a word processor.
• Clicking on the box arrow at the right-hand end of the address bar opens a drop-down list of recently-visited sites

• AutoComplete - IE checks what you're typing against URLs you've visited, and automatically inserts a suggested address. If it's the one you want, press [Enter]. If it's not, keep on typing.

Search - if you're not sure of a web site's URL, try typing find sitename in the address bar (for example find microsoft). IE will look on the Web for likely URLs (e.g. www.microsoft.com, www.microsoft.org). If it can't find a site, it will offer you the option to perform a keyword search instead.

Toolbar - Navigation Buttons

The Back and Forward buttons propel you through Web pages you've visited in your current browsing session, while the Home button provides a one-click jump to any Web page you choose to call 'home' (see Setting IE 4 Options for details of how to choose your home page). The Stop button tells the browser to stop downloading the current page - handy if you decide not to wait for that mammoth graphic image to appear (moving to a different page also stops the current page download). The Refresh button tells IE to re-download the current page.

• Back/Forward button drop-down menus. Clicking the down-arrow to the right of the Back or Forward button produces a drop-down menu of items from the history list. You can go directly to any item.

Toolbar - The Explorer Bar Buttons

These buttons select the new Explorer Bar, a frame which opens on the left-hand side of the browser window. Clicking a button either opens the Explorer Bar, or replaces its current contents. Clicking on the currently-selected button ('History' in the example above) closes the Explorer Bar.

The Explorer bar options are:

• Search. Opens a search page to one of the Web's search engine sites (e.g. Yahoo, Alta Vista). The results are displayed as hyperlinks in the Explorer Bar, and you can view the linked sites in the main browser window.
• Favorites. Shows the contents of your Favorites folder in the Explorer Bar. Clicking on a Favorite opens the relevant page in the main browser window.
• History. Shows the history list in the Explorer Bar. Unlike the Back/Forward drop-down menus, this isn't just the history of your current browser session - you see previous entries as well. Pages are organised by site, rather than in chronological order.
• Channels. This shows content channels you're subscribed to, as well as Microsoft's channel guide. See Channels for more details.

For more information on the Explorer bar, see The Explorer Bar In Detail.

Toolbar - Extra Buttons

These buttons perform the following miscellaneous - but very important - functions:

• Print. Prints the current document. Beware if you've got a Fax printer installed! By default, your page background (or background colour) isn't printed - if you want to print it, choose View..Options... from the IE menu bar, then click the Advanced tab, scroll down to 'Printing' and check 'Print background colors and images'. To select a printer, or adjust paper size and print quality, choose File..Page Setup from the IE menu bar.
• Font. Most Web pages enable you to choose the size at which their text is displayed - bigger to make it easier to read, smaller to cram more onto the screen. IE4's new menu-based system is much easier to navigate than IE3's.
• Mail. This opens the mail menu. Clicking on either Read Mail or Read News opens Outlook Express, IE 4's new combined Mail/Newsgroup client. Send a Link creates a new email message with the URL of the current Web page, for you to send to someone else. Send Page creates a new email message with the Web document itself (not just its URL) as an attachment.