Let us continue our deep dive on Link functions and options.

Right Click options when clicking on an EXISTING Document Link (Hyperlink):

You can choose a link to change, add, or remove and each option behaves differently.

Links created with these methods can be removed at the time you compile WITHOUT changing the underlying text.

Note: The Menu command Edit > can only access options 2, 3, and 4 which are discussed below.

#1. Open Document Link in-

Here you choose how you want the Link you have Right clicked on to open. (see the options below)

#2. Edit Link-

For Internal Links-

This will allow you to edit the Link Target but not the name of the Link and bring up the Link to Document Panel (see below). For INTERNAL Document Links you can link the Link to a new document anywhere in the project with the New Linked Document tab, or use the Link to Existing Document tab which will show the current Link location and surrounding files. You will have the ability to scroll the Binder here as well. The panel can be expanded using the mouse to stretch the edges.

For External Links

You must edit the link address as it appears in the Link panel below. Simply click inside the link, hover over it, or highlight the link and Right-click. Now choose the edit link option and the panel below appears. However, if you only highlight a part of the link, then after editing a hyperlink’s address, the original hyperlink could now contain two links inside of it. In effect, creating two adjacent hyperlinks. Make sure the whole hyperlink is selected before editing.

Note some browsers or text editors add additional formatting to links you may use. If you remove a link, but still see text which mimics a hyperlink, then this is due to extra formatting. If clicking on this does nothing, then the link was removed, and you may need to reformat the text that contained the hyperlink.

#3. Remove Link-

This gives the option to remove the link(s) inside the selected text. All links inside the selected text will be removed. However, if you only select part of a link, then the Remove Link function will remove part of the Hyperlink, but the rest of the Link will still function as before. With removing links, you can include normal text on both sides of the link without affecting the unlinked text. The Menu command Edit > Remove Link will provide the same function.

#4. Link to Document-

This allows you to attach a NEW link to any UNLINKED text OR change the Link destination of any hyperlink you choose. (This option is further down the Right click menu options.) You will have a screen showing you the current Project’s Binder files to choose from, or you can choose the option of a New Link and bring up the Link to Document Panel (see above).

#5. Update Document Links to Use Target Titles-

This will update the current Link’s text to show the title of the actual document the link refers to. This will update if the title was changed since the link was originally created. (see below)

***Using the Undo and Redo functions can reverse any changes you make to new or existing Links if you are not happy with the results or make an error.

Changing the Link Target

The link target is what Scrivener will load when you click on the link. This can be changed to another target by selecting the link and choosing a different folder to link to.

You can do this three ways:

1.) Highlight the Link and use the Menu command Edit > and will have the three options shown below. When you highlight a Link, the Edit menu changes the option of Add Link to Edit (the) Link in the Menu command list.

1.) Right Click on current Link and select the Edit Link or Link to Document options. Choosing either will bring up the Link dialog panel. (see below)

2.) Use the Keyboard shortcut Ctrl + L.

All three options lead to the Link to Document Panel below.

The Link can now be changed to a different existing Document, or a newly created linked Document.

When you choose the Link to Document option, you can directly navigate to a Document to link to in the Project Binder or choose a New Link, which brings up the Panel below.

Open by highlighting a word(s) and:

A.) Using the right click menu and choosing Link to Document

B.) Using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + L

These bring up the Create New Linked Document Menu (see below)

This comes up when you use the Add a Link, Link to a Document, or Edit Link options

# 1. Is the Choice to create a New Linked Document.

#2. Shows the Destination Container (a Document with subdocuments) and a Title (#3) that you can edit for the New Linked Document

#3. The title for the new link can be edited.

#4. Checking this option limits the destination to only folders or files with subdocuments. You can remove this restriction (uncheck the box) if you want to be able to show every Document in your project as a possible Link target.

#5. Gives you the option to Link to an existing document and this can be any document in the Binder (#7)

#6. The Link to Existing Document pane.

#7. Is a list of specific documents you could choose to link to in your Binder.

Adding Multiple Document Links at once:

1. Select Multiple files in the Binder (adjacent to each other or separated)

2a. Use the Menu command Edit > Copy Special > Copy Documents as Structure Link List.

2b. Or if you use a split Editor window and lock a window. Then you can drag the documents selected above directly into the Locked document in the split Editor view.

3. Pick a blank space in the Editor and click paste and a list of links to each of the previously selected documents in the Binder will be created.

Note: Using this method, you could drag multiple documents into a new blank document and create a Link Hub. A list of links for a specific topic, novel character, or a location all in one Document. Thus, One file in Project Bookmarks could hold a long list of links which would be available in every document from the Inspector and allow you to find any character in your novel simply by clicking his/her link in this list of characters.

Updating Link text Automatically

When using internal links as a form of cross-referencing, a mechanism for updating the link text to match any revised document titles would be useful. For example, if you change a document’s name from "The King’s Jester" to "His Jester".

If all of your internal links in your draft are meant to be displaying the title of the thing they link to as readable text, then you can select large portions of text at once and fix any links whose titles have changed by using the Menu command Edit > Text Tidying > Update Document Links to Use (the current) Target Titles command. This can be done in batches. (see below)

You may also fix links one-by-one when you come across them with this command (Just make sure the Whole link is selected.). This command is also available in the contextual menu when right-clicking on a link, or a selection of text that contains document links.

How to Quickly Find Links to Fix

After you have updated a section title and know there are links pointing to old titles you need to fix, you can easily locate them without proofreading the entire book yourself. Use the Menu command Edit > Find > Find by Formatting... (or the Shortcut Windows Key + Alt + Shift +F ) command to make quick work of this, by setting the Find type to "Links", the Link type to "Document ", and then provide the old title to the Containing text field.

Now choose All Documents and just supply the old title to easily find all the links still using the old title. Now, you can easily correct/update the links you find these even if they are widely scattered by using the Right click option of Update Document Links to Use Target Titles as you find them.

Linking Without Linking

Scrivener allows you to create an automatically generated network of cross-references between research, written material and notes without having to leave the Editor or use the Binder. Scrivener uses its title scanning capability to do this.

Here is how to do this:

While writing in a document in your binder, highlight a word such as a Character name or a specific location.

Right-click on the selection.

At the very top of the contextual menu you will find a command labeled Open. (If you do not see this contextual option, then the word(s) you highlighted did not match/partly match any titles in your current project.)

Any item that has a title (ie Titles generated via manual entry or Adaptive Naming.) can be linked this way.

Examples from a Novel (Right-clicking on the character names Callee or Brian gives multiple document options that are linked (without formally linking) to this word(s) in the text. Another example is shown below using a location, Sonoma (California).

A (above) is a scene in the Novel.

B (above) are background files

Now if you select a document from the list, this will open in the current Editor window and you can edit or refer to this Document.

In this way, a phrase in text can be highlighted giving a list of Documents which you can choose to open

This is one way of linking text without leaving the document. Based on what documents come up with this method, you could use the title to create a Wikilink in the Inspector Notes to save the Link for future reference without leaving the document.

Clicking on any document in the Open list will open that document in the current Editor. (You can choose how Document Links open in the Options Panel (see below), BUT these options DO NOT apply this type of linking. You can use information from files you open this way by copying information and clicking the back caret on the left side of the editor to go back to the original file.

Or you can Right click on the Editor icon of the linked document and use the Reveal in Binder option to show its location. Now use the Editor back button to go to the original file. If the file you viewed this way has important information, then you can drag the file into the Document Bookmark Panel or the Inspector Notes to create a clickable link to this file for future reference.

Anchor Points

You can also use Anchor Points to link various areas of your project as well.

"Wikilinks"

If you do not want to do any of the above ways to link to your current file, you can create a "Wikilink" either in the Editor or in the Inspector Notes. This link is formed by surrounding a document title with double brackets [[ before and after the Title of any document. This will create a hyperlink to that document. Placing this link in the Inspector notes will not leave any traces in the Compile output if you are not including notes with it. Thus Linking without Links give you the choice of adding potentially pertinent documents with a link back either in the editor or this "Wikilink" which can also be placed in Inspector Notes (not the Synopsis), Comments/Footnotes (Though you will not see a hyperlink color or line after you create the Link, you will still create a functioning link.),

These Wikilinks can not be placed in the Synopsis, Snapshots, or Custom Metadata.

How to create links to Research and Resource files without increasing your Project Size (or a very minimal increase).

Creating links is the solution to avoid large increases in the Project size as you add Research materials. Linking to these files will have them present in the Binder as a fully functional file without the burden of the file’s size.

You must click on Documents within the Research Folder in your Project to be able to use this function. (If you click on a file inside the Manuscript this Menu command will not work function.)

There are two methods to do this:

1. Use the Menu command File > Import > Research Files as Shortcuts

Doing this opens the Windows File Explorer and you can go to the folders storing research material. You can add one or multiple files at once. Ideally, you should have a single or only a few folders where you store your research, to make importing information easier. With this method they can be directly viewed in Scrivener.

The files added this way will appear below the file you are currently in.

2. Drag and drop existing file SHORTCUTS (not the file itself) into the Binder’s Research Folder. If you drag the shortcut this can go into the Binder, but you will have to open the shortcut in an external viewer to see the file. In this case you will not see the file itself when you open the document but a clickable shortcut file. [see below] (This applies to PDF and Image files and I assume multimedia and web files, though I did not test these.)

This feature is only available for non-text based research (PDF files, images, multimedia, and web files) which Scrivener can display in the Editor Window. You CANNOT do this for word processor or plain text files. (You could export these as a PDF to get around this limitation.)

You can treat these linked research files as a regular file in that you can assign keywords, metadata, add Inspector notes, label colors, etc. However, because this is a shortcut, you CANNOT take snapshots or make comments/footnotes. They can also be viewed in split editor windows or with a QRP, but you must click on the imported file’s shortcut hyperlink to view the material and this will take you to an external viewer.

The downside to linking is that if you move or sync the project to another computer, the research files will no longer be attached to the project by these shortcuts. The links will stay in place, and all metadata, tagging, and Binder organization you have assigned will remain, BUT the source of the file will be inaccessible until you return to the primary computer where the link was established, or reestablish the links on the second computer even if the files are on both computers in the same place. This includes a shared cloud folder. (Here you will still have to reestablish these links on the second computer, EVEN THOUGH the file location is unchanged.)

To repair you will need to select the link(s) in the binder that you wish to repair ONE AT A TIME:

Use the Menu command Documents > Change Shortcut Target.

Use the file dialogue box to reselect the source for the item you wish to redirect the broken binder link to.

Unfortunately, this can only be done one document at a time. These broken links would be easier to repair if the files the shortcuts refer to are kept in one overall Resource folder (ie one location). (Even if it contains subfolders.)

The magic that makes these file shortcuts capable of being followed around when renamed or moved depends upon a link that is specific to that computer. I tested this with the laptop.

Linked files will have a small curved arrow on their icon to indicate they are shortcuts and not the actual file. Even if you change the Icon, the small arrow to indicate the file is a shortcut will remain.

See the Examples below:

Above is a custom icon also displaying the shortcut arrow.

#1 is a folder holding research PDFs. Once imported these documents(shortcuts) can be organized into folders in any fashion you want just like ordinary documents as long as they stay in the Research folder.

#2 is a folder holding images. An example of the preview of an Image and PDF are shown above.

#3 is adjacent to a blowup of the image and PDF icons. (See larger icons showing this above.)

Once in your project, these resources can be dragged into any document’s Bookmark Panel as a resource or into Project Bookmarks. Research added as Research Files as shortcuts can be viewed in the Inspector Bookmark area. File shortcuts will only show an image of the shortcut name as a link and must be clicked on to open.

Everything that applies to research files applies to linked resources.

***These will behave just like items imported into the binder.

They can be organized into folders, have an index card, keywords and viewed like any other file in multiple editor views.

To locate the original source file for the alias, right-click on the item in the binder and press and hold the CTRL key to reveal a new (hidden) right click option of “Reveal in File Explorer”.

Clicking this will show the location of the original file on your computer used for this Research Shortcut.

Link Overview 3 Links without linking and more

Name Generator

Links Overview 2 (external Links)