from the welcome page it was possible for any user to find pages of information in several different ways, or a combination of them. printed directories were available which gave the full page numbers corresponding to the items in an alphabetical index. pages were accessed directly by keying "*page number#". individual pages often had links to related pages which could be accessed by use of one or two digit routing codes. this feature was widely used on sets of index pages which were commonly grouped by subject heading, provided both by the post office/bt and by individual ips. because of the numerical limitation, it was often necessary to go through a series of index pages in order to reach the desired page. extension frames which might be required to view further information on a topic could be only accessed by use of the "#" key. from 1987 onwards, it became possible to use access prestel pages via use of special alphabetic codes, provided that the ip who owned the page set up a special keyword mapped onto that page. thus, by keying *m news#, it was possible for a user to route directly to page *40111# to obtain news about micro-computers.