Glossary » hypertext

hypertext

a collection of text documents with links from one document to another. A “hypermedia” system is the same sort of collection, but including documents of any type, such as graphics, video, etc. The links may pass between essentially any two documents, with no systematic restrictions, forming a broad collection of associations.

The Web is the most well-known hypermedia system. Some variations of hypertext that the web does not typically support include:

• allowing people to link from any document, including ones that they don’t own
• creating links of different “types”, such as distinguishing between “definition” links, “see also” links, and “author” or “source” links (which would lead to information about the author or source text of a passage)
• allowing a single phrase or graphic to have links to multiple destinations