External links are missing from my E-portfolio

A common problem when designing e-portfolios is how to use the “File link” feature to link to files from within the text editor: while this works fine when running the project inside OpenMind, after exporting to HTML most users find that the file links are now unusable.

The solution is to include the files in a special folder in the export, and then link to the files contained therein using URL links instead. A step-by-step guide is provided below:

1. create a folder somewhere for the project you’re working on. To avoid any future frustration over missing files, please make sure the folder is located somewhere safe, like in the same folder as the project file itself (the desktop is a bad choice). For this example, let’s say the new folder is called “eportfiles”.
2. copy all external files used by your project into the new folder. You can add more files later – just remember that all files in the folder will be included upon export, so try to keep it tidy to avoid having to upload several (hundred) megabytes of redundant data.
3. add the “eportfiles” folder to the OpenMind project export, using the “Tools” -> “Additional folders” menu. This will ensure that the entire folder, including all files, will be included whenever the document is exported to something like HTML.
4. create links like you usually do, but choose “URL link” instead of “File link”. Assuming you’d like to link to a file called “cv.pdf”, you’d input the following into the path field: “eportfiles/cv.pdf” (without the quotes, and without the default “http://”).

Now, when the project is exported, a relative hyperlink is created – and because the “eportfiles”-folder has been included in the export, this link will now point to the newly exported copy instead of the original on your own machine (or network).