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### 4.3 External links

Org supports links to files, websites, Usenet and email messages, BBDB database entries and links to both IRC conversations and their logs. 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://www.astro.uva.nl/~dominik          on the web
         doi:10.1000/182                           DOI for an electronic resource
         file:/home/dominik/images/jupiter.jpg     file, absolute path
         /home/dominik/images/jupiter.jpg          same as above
         file:papers/last.pdf                      file, relative path
         ./papers/last.pdf                         same as above
         file:/myself@some.where:papers/last.pdf   file, path on remote machine
         /myself@some.where:papers/last.pdf        same as above
         file:sometextfile::NNN                    file with line number to jump to
         file:projects.org                         another Org file
         file:projects.org::some words             text search in Org file
         file:projects.org::*task title            heading search in Org file
         docview:papers/last.pdf::NNN              open file in doc-view mode at page NNN
         id:B7423F4D-2E8A-471B-8810-C40F074717E9   Link to heading by ID
         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:R.*Stallman                          BBDB link (with regexp)
         irc:/irc.com/#emacs/bob                   IRC link
         info:org:External%20links                 Info node link (with encoded space)
         shell:ls *.org                            A shell command
         elisp:org-agenda                          Interactive Elisp command
         elisp:(find-file-other-frame "Elisp.org") 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 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 square brackets.