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Viewing External Links

You can view a list of files in your Flare project containing links to external files. For example, if you have a text hyperlink to a website, the file name where the link exists is displayed. By clicking the "Check" button, you can verify that all external links point to valid destinations. In addition, you can double-click a row to open the file in the Analyzer interface. You can also select the row and click File > Send to Flare to open the file in the Flare project. This allows you to fix any problems with external links.

Closedhow to view external links
  1. Open a project.
  2. Select the View ribbon. In the Dynamic Reports section, select Links > External Links.

    The External Links window pane opens, listing all of the occurrences of external links in the project.

  3. To see more of the information in the window pane, drag the divider bar to make the pane wider:

    • Link Displays the external link.
    • Status Displays the status of the external link. After you click the "Check" button, this cell provides a message indicating whether the external link is valid or not.
    • File Displays the name of the file where the external link occurs.
    • Folder Displays the folder where the file is found.
    • Link Text Displays the text in the source topic that is being used as the link.
    • Link Tag Displays the style used for the link. For example, if a regular text hyperlink is used, you will see "a" in this column.
    • Extension Displays the extension of the file where the link is pointing (e.g., htm).

  4. If a certain number of items have been found, page navigation buttons in the local toolbar may be enabled. You can use these buttons to go to additional pages to display more items. You also have the option to view all items at once in one long list. This is called the View All option. You can toggle these views by clicking the View All/View as Pages button in the local toolbar. The button displays the opposite of whatever view is currently activated (e.g., If the View All option is currently active, the button shows View as Pages to indicate that if clicked, the button will switch the window pane to the View as Pages option).

Closedhow to check and fix external links
  1. In the External Links window pane, select the rows that you want to validate. You can hold the SHIFT key to select a range, or you can hold the CTRL key to select individual items.

  2. Click the Check button. If a particular external link does not point to a valid destination, the Status cell displays a message indicating so.

  3. If the external link is not valid, you can remove it or fix it in the source file. Do one of the following, depending on whether you want to open the file in the Analyzer interface or within Flare.

    to open the file in the analyzer interface

    Double-click the file in the window pane. The benefit of using this method is that it is quick and convenient. You have access to the features normally available in the editor (but not necessarily to all of the features available elsewhere in Flare).

    to open the file in flare

    1. In the window pane, click on the file.
    2. Select File > Send to Flare.

    The benefit of using this method is that you have access to all of the features in the application, not just those available from the editor.

  4. Remove or redirect the link as necessary (e.g., right-click on the link and select Unbind or Edit Hyperlink). See the online Help in Flare for more information about creating and editing navigation links.
Closednote

Note: You can also include this information in reports that you create. See About Reports.