Insert an image from a remote location into a topic

This procedure uses a text editor to insert images from remote locations, FTP sites or local files outside the repository.

About this task

When you are inserting images from outside the repository, you may use either absolute or relative pathnames. However, you should keep in mind that setups vary in different machines. When you specify the path for your image, you’d better be sure that the path makes sense with regard to the machine (and the local network) where the files will be installed.
Note: When you use this procedure, the images will not be part of your output. The output will be created with links to the images. When you load your output onto the web server, the content will link to external images in the location you specified.

Procedure

  1. Open the topic in your XML editor.
  2. Place the cursor where you want to insert the image.
  3. Insert an <image> tag.
  4. Add an href attribute to the opening portion of the image tag.
    Your tag should look like this: <image href=""></image>
  5. Type the location you want to reference between the quotation marks of the href attribute.
    The following table shows the location types accepted by the href attribute and their syntax.
    Location type Syntax
    Web site http://sitename
    Secure web site https://sitename
    FTP site ftp://sitename
    Secure FTP site ftps://sitename
    Local file file://driveletter/filename
    Your tag should look something like this: 
    <image href="file://C:\Documents and Settings\MalerM\My Documents\Document life cycle.jpg"></image>
    Tip: Add a comment showing the image title just above the <image> tag, if the target name isn't totally intuitive.