Emacs Elements is back with a useful video on Org mode internal links. If most of your Org documents are short—a blog post, say—you probably haven’t felt the need for internal links but if you, even occasionally, write longer form documents they can really help you navigate within your text.
The subject is a bit more complicated than you might think. There are five type of internal links that serve slightly different purposes. They are:
- Headline Links
- These links point to a particular headline. They aren’t necessarily precise. For example, if the section they point to is long and the information you’re interested in buried within the section, a more precise type of link may be called for.
- Custom ID Links
- These links point to whatever section has the Custom ID that the link points to. You can put them anywhere you can put a drawer.
- Dedicated Target Links
- These are the most precise links of all. They’re sort of like HTML anchors. They can be put anywhere in the text.
- Radio Links
- These are sort of like dedicated target links except that you don’t need a specially formatted reference. The idea is that anytime you use the name of the link in your text, a link reference is created. Their main use is for definitions. You tag the definition as a radio link and anytime you use the term in your text, a link is created to the definition.
The video does a good job of explaining the mechanics of using the various types of links so spend a few minutes with it or the documentation for the details. My only issue with the video is that it doesn’t discuss the shortcuts for entering links. They’re just like those for external links except that you choose a different link type.
The video is 11 minutes, 36 seconds so you shouldn’t have any problem finding time for it. It’s an excellent introduction to internal links and well worth a few minutes of your time.