Absolute and Relative Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks contained in your maps are retained, so all the supporting documentation, video and audio files, spreadsheets etc. that you link to from the maps are potentially viewable. However, it is important to be aware how relative and absolute hyperlinks work in the HTML versions of your process maps.

Absolute hyperlinks always link to the same place, irrespective of where they link from; relative links, on the other hand, change their target link if the source document moves.

The significance of this becomes apparent when exporting to HTML maps that link to external documents other than Process Navigator maps. In the HTML domain, whereas the absolute hyperlinks will still link to the same files, the relative ones may not. Indeed, the relative hyperlinks will only link to the same place when the HTMLROOT (the location of your HTML files) and the Multi-Map Root (the location of your Visio files) are in the same relative location.

Below are listed four scenarios to help explain the use of relative or absolute hyperlinks.

Scenario 1: Only absolute hyperlinks

In this first scenario, you will notice that the Multi-Map Root, the linked documents and the target root of the HTML export are in three different locations. Assuming that you do not want to take copies of the linked documents and put them in the same location as the HTML target root, the links will need to be absolute.

However, if the R:\ is subsequently remapped to Q:\ after the HTML export, the absolute links will not be valid. Therefore, you will need to use Process Navigator’s Replace Hyperlinks feature.

Scenario 2: Absolute and/or Relative Hyperlinks

This scenario can use either absolute or relative hyperlinks. Relative hyperlinks can be used because Linked Documents is in the same relative location to Multi-Map Root as it is to HTML.

The benefits of using relative hyperlinks is that if, for example, you intend to email a set of process maps with hyperlinks to someone outside of your office, they will be able to view the maps because the links are relative. If the links were absolute, the person would not be able to view the hyperlinks because the maps would be looking for drive M:\ (as per the above example) which they will not have.

Absolute hyperlinks would have to be used in this scenario if, for example, the HTML location changes to another drive.

Scenario 3 - Absolute only

In this scenario, you will notice that the linked documents are located in three separate folders. An absolute hyperlink will be required for each.

Scenario 4 - Relative only

This last scenario shows that copies of Linked Documents are placed in the same location as the HTML server. Relative hyperlinks, therefore, can be used.

To understand the implications of this, you should set up a test before undertaking widespread process mapping. Make sure you link to a wide variety of objects in the test, external documents, other Visio maps, maps on different drives etc. When you export the set of test files to HTML, test that each of the links works in the way you anticipate. Then load the HTML files up onto the intranet or Internet to ensure that all links work as expected.