Quick Tip: How to Hyperlink Anything!
The Hyperlink feature is one of the most underutilized, but certainly one of the most powerful (introduced in AutoCAD 2000i!). Wouldn’t it be cool to launch one drawing from within another one? Or how about linking a part to a website containing product specs?
Setup
Let’s take four possible link options: Link to a URL on the Internet, link to an .XLS (or .CSV), link to another .DWG, or maybe link to an MS Word .DOC.
You could create a simple library of ‘bullets’ to represent each type of link (shown in the illustration). Whenever you need to hyperlink an area or an object to that file type or location, add that bullet to your drawing, then use the Hyperlink command and make the link!
Memo: The shapes shown in the illustration were created with the (antiquated) Solid command. The illustration indicates the results based on the sequence used to place the points.
In this exercise, I’m attaching a hyperlink that will go to the AUGI Forums site, but you can link to some other site if you want.
How to Assign a Hyperlink to an Object
1. Copy your URL of choice, such as http://www.augi.com/forum/.
2. On the Insert tab >Data panel, click Hyperlink.
3. Select the object(s) to receive the hyperlink, then press [Enter] to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog box shown here.
Memo: If you don’t see the information shown in this figure, click the button for Existing File or Web Page.
4. Now Paste the copied into the box for ‘Type the File or Web Page’.
5. Change the ‘Text to display’ to something more concise.
6. Click OK, then hover over the object to see the hyperlink tooltip.
7. You have two options when you want to open the hyperlink:
A. Per the tooltip, CTRL + click to follow the link.
B. Select the hyperlinked object, then right-click, then click Hyperlink >Open (shown here).
Memo: If you don’t see the tooltip, go to Options on the User Preferences tab and confirm the box is checked for “Display Hyperlink.”
