Question Regarding Hyperlinks

Is it possible to hyperlink to a specific part of a text document within Scrivener, or can I only create a link to an entire document?

For example, say I am writing out research notes about the different types of baking in different cultures, and I have a unique text document for each country I have researched; additionally, say that within each country document I have sections about cake, bread, and cookies. Without creating a unique sub-document of text for each cake, bread, and cookie section, is there a way to create a hyperlink to my specific country’s bread section? Right now, all I have is a link to the whole country’s baking text file and no specific pointer to the bread section.

If it’s just to navigate through your Research yourself, try creating one word Comments of key words in your document. Use the items in the Inspector Footnotes and Comments tab to jump to a Comment.

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Why wouldn’t you create a sub-document for each section? Especially if it’s long enough for you to need to link to it?

Thank you, I didn’t think of this; I will try to implement something along the lines of what you recommended and see if it suits my purposes. Cheers!

Unfortunately, my example wasn’t the best choice and too simple to accurately to reflect my situation. I am working with text documents that contain many definitions or collections of generally related facts gathered under loose overarching topics. It would seem tiresome to make a new sub-document for each new definition, and much more convenient to have hyperlinks directly to each specific definition within my other documents of research.

I don’t know the details of your situation, obviously. But in my experience, people often spend a lot of time and effort trying to duplicate functionality that would come “for free” if they just broke the document down into smaller chunks.

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Linking internally to specific anchors within the manuscript is not something that matters a great deal to fiction writers. But for some types of non-fiction material, internal links are very useful, even necessary and (like many other formatting issues) not easily carried out in Scrivener.

I prefer to insert links and anchors in a word processor when carrying out final page layouts for paperback books or in an eBook software after exporting the final draft from Scrivener. This approach does require keeping notes or inserting place markers during the drafting stage in order to be able to locate where you wanted the links.

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Thank you @philjaq, I think this answers my question. While I am not linking within my manuscript, but rather in my research (which is for fiction :wink:), this certainly gives me a better idea of the abilities and limitations of Scrivener. Cheers!

I write fiction and disagree with you.

A textual linking feature would be something I would most definitely utilize, primarily for linking from research/notes to the manuscript (similar to @Sheppard). But I could envision establishing textual links within the manuscript as well, for instance linking text where a “reader promise” was made to the point in the text where that promise was fulfilled.

To be clear, I’m referring to links that would be invisible to the reader, and would only be used during drafting. This is a feature I’d definitely use, if it were available without having to take invasive steps like breaking scenes into arbitrary pieces that structurally make no sense.

Best,
Jim

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Well said. This is a point excellently made and I agree with the concept that the links fundamentally would be invisible to the reader as well as non-invasive to the existing writing structures. Wading through miles of research to rediscover my own notes on a historical novel has been it’s own challenge, but your example on how to use potential linking within the manuscript itself has opened my mind to the further possibilities such a feature could supply to a writer.

*Forgot to Reply to you, @JimRac, sorry for the deleted post.