Forum Discussion
Broken links /path to external pdf-files
Hello, I have to edit some projects a co-worker made. When I import the storyline project, everything works fine (audio en video) but the links to external files (pdf) don't work. I have to manually reattach every file. Can I do something to avoid this in the future? We work in a large organisation, files are in a shared drive, so sometimes people change the name or place of files, this is difficult to avoid. If I understand correctly, audio and video are stored in a media library, but pdf/word-documents are added with links to your own computer? Any work-arounds? Can I add the files to the resources and then link to the resources, does that work?
You can add as many PDF files as you want to the resources. For instance, if you added a PDF file to the resources named 'pdf1,' you would need to specify its exact stored location in the Open URL/File trigger. Use a relative link such as story_content/external_files/pdf1.pdf to point to the file's location.
Just make sure the PDF file name is unique if you are pointing to a different PDF document stored in the external_files folder.
You asked: "Can I add the files to the resources and then link to the resources, does that work?" Answer: You can indeed add the files to the resources but no, you cannot link to the resources.
We have encountered the same issue in our organization and it ultimately was resolved by identifying that the original PDF links used were pointing to locations that were permissions-restricted. Because of how our internal sites were being restructured and how access to different locations was rebuilt, a good many files that were not previously available to everyone are now in a central repository (available to all) - which meant that we had to change the address where the PDF links pointed to.
I would recommend that you use the "greatest common access" location for the PDFs, then also include them in the Resources tab. That solution has worked for us, although it has not made the process of fixing the location links any easier.
The links are local links to the developers machine. You can use network drive locations but sometimes these do not attach and sometimes drive letters dont map the same
You can add as many PDF files as you want to the resources. For instance, if you added a PDF file to the resources named 'pdf1,' you would need to specify its exact stored location in the Open URL/File trigger. Use a relative link such as story_content/external_files/pdf1.pdf to point to the file's location.
Just make sure the PDF file name is unique if you are pointing to a different PDF document stored in the external_files folder.
