How to Create a Menu Item in Joomla Content Management

By Seamus Bellamy and Steven Holzner from Joomla! For Dummies, 2nd Edition

A menu item determines the layout of articles, which is one of the aspects of Joomla that you have to get used to. Web pages don’t exist physically in Joomla — they’re only items in your database — until the page is accessed. When you open an article, Joomla takes the necessary data from the database and wraps it in the formatting options chosen by the webmaster.

To create a new menu item to link to an article, follow these steps:

Choose Menus→Menu Manager in any back-end page.

Menu Manager’s Menus page opens.
Click the name of the menu to which you want to add an item.

For this exercise, click About Joomla.

Menu Manager’s Menu Items page opens.
Click the New button.

Menu Manager’s Edit Menu Item page opens.
Click the Select button next to the Menu Item Type text box, and choose an option.

For this exercise, choose Single Article.
In the Title text box, type a title.

For this exercise, type Privacy Policy.
In the Alias text box, type an alias, if you want to use one.

For this exercise, type privacy-policy.

It’s worth mentioning that Joomla can automatically create an alias for you, so while you may take this step, it is not necessary.
From the Menu Location drop-down menu, choose the menu or component that you want your new menu item or subcomponent to be part of.

For this exercise, choose About Joomla.
Check your work to ensure that you spelled everything correctly.

When you search for a component, module, or article by name later, you’ll be glad that you did!
From the State drop-down menu, choose Published.