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. You can either double-click on the specific row, or right-click on the row and select Open. This lets you fix any problems with external links.

  1. Open a project.
  2. Select Analysis > 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 can also click View All in the local toolbar to see all results on a single page. Keep in mind that the more items you have in the project, the longer it will take to load this view.
  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. You can either double-click on the specific row, or right-click on the row and select Open.

  4. Remove or redirect the link as necessary (e.g., right-click on the link and select Unbind or Edit Hyperlink).

What’s Noteworthy?

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