Linking to websites and files

A web address in a note becomes a link on its own. Paste https://example.com/docs into a line and it renders as a link where it stands, ready to click. If you would rather show words than the address, write it the Markdown way:

See [the docs](https://example.com/docs) for the details.

Once your cursor leaves the line the brackets and the address fade out and just the docs shows, underlined in the link colour. Click back onto the line and the whole thing reappears so you can edit it. <https://example.com> in angle brackets works too, and renders as the address.

A plain click opens the link in a new tab. To put your cursor into the link text without opening it, hold Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) while you click.

Links to files on your computer

A path to a file on your own machine can be a link as well, written as a file:/// address:

The signed contract is at file:///home/gareth/Documents/Contract.pdf
[Q3 report](file:///C:/Users/Gareth/Reports/Q3.docx)

There is one thing to know about these: a browser cannot open a file on your computer from a web page. That is a rule every browser enforces, and it is a good one. So a file link does not try. It is underlined, but not in the link colour, and next to it sits a small copy icon. Click the icon, or the link itself, and the path is copied to your clipboard in the form your computer uses, ready to paste into a file manager, a terminal or an Open dialog:

You wrote	You get
file:///home/gareth/My%20Notes.pdf	/home/gareth/My Notes.pdf
file:///C:/Users/Gareth/Q3.docx	C:\Users\Gareth\Q3.docx
file://server/share/plans.xlsx	\\server\share\plans.xlsx

The icon shows a tick for a moment to say the copy happened. With your cursor on a line that has a file link, type / and choose Copy file path, which is the keyboard route; on a line with more than one, it copies the link nearest before your cursor.

Two small rules, both the same as for any web address: a space in the path must be written as %20, or the link ends at the space; and EtherPK does not check that the file exists, so a link to a file you later move still copies the old path.

On a local graph, a file that belongs with the note is better kept as an attachment, which travels with the graph and opens in its own tab. See Images And Files In Your Notes.