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4.3 External links

Org-mode supports links to files, websites, Usenet and email messages, and BBDB database entries. External links are URL-like locators. They start with a short identifying string followed by a colon. There can be no space after the colon. The following list shows examples for each link type.

     http://orgmode.org/                       on the web
     file:/home/dominik/images/jupiter.jpg     file, absolute path
     file:papers/last.pdf                      file, relative path
     news:comp.emacs                           Usenet link
     mailto:adent@galaxy.net                   Mail link
     vm:folder                                 VM folder link
     vm:folder#id                              VM message link
     vm://myself@some.where.org/folder#id      VM on remote machine
     wl:folder                                 WANDERLUST folder link
     wl:folder#id                              WANDERLUST message link
     mhe:folder                                MH-E folder link
     mhe:folder#id                             MH-E message link
     rmail:folder                              RMAIL folder link
     rmail:folder#id                           RMAIL message link
     gnus:group                                GNUS group link
     gnus:group#id                             GNUS article link
     bbdb:Richard Stallman                     BBDB link
     shell:ls *.org                            A shell command
     elisp:(find-file-other-frame "Elisp.org") An elisp form to evaluate

A link should be enclosed in double brackets and may contain a descriptive text to be displayed instead of the url (see Link format), for example:

     [[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/][GNU Emacs]]

If the description is a file name or URL that points to an image, HTML export (see HTML export) will inline the image as a clickable button. If there is no description at all and the link points to an image, that image will be inlined into the exported HTML file.

Org-mode also finds external links in the normal text and activates them as links. If spaces must be part of the link (for example in `bbdb:Richard Stallman'), or if you need to remove ambiguities about the end of the link, enclose them in angular brackets.