Internal Links

Internal links are a tool to connect two locations within a MAXDQA project. These locations can be within documents, video files, audio files as well as memos. Internal links always connect two points with each other, an anchor point and a target point. As soon as you click on an anchor point of an existing link, the corresponding target point is opened up. In MAXQDA, these links work as two-way links. If you click on the target point, you get back to the starting point of the internal link.

You can link two text or image passages like this:

  • Select a text or image segment in the "Document Browser" with the mouse.
  • Right-click on the marker and select the Insert Internal Link option. Alternatively, you can use the Ctrl+L (Windows) or cmd+L (Mac) keyboard shortcut, or click the Set internal link icon in the coding bar of the Document Browser. The display of the marked position changes now: In texts it appears blue underlined in PDF and image files a blue frame is drawn.
Toolbar button for creating an internal link
  • You can now select the target point of the link, either in the same document or in another, and repeat step 2.

If, after the first step, the user decides against creating the link or wants to change the text that had been selected, clicking the Remove last link icon removes it.

Toolbar button for removing an internal link

You can recognize links within a text in the "Document Browser" by their blue color and underlined text. As soon as you move the mouse over the link, a small pop-up window appears with information about target document and a preview of the linked location.

Blue underlined internal link with tooltip

These pop-up windows of the text linked to a text passage sometimes suggest anchoring the link not only to a single word, but to an entire sentence or section. To jump from a link in the "Document Browser" to the associated location, simply click on the blue link. The document containing the destination point is loaded immediately and positioned exactly at the point of the link.

Tip: If the second "Document Browser" is open, MAXQDA automatically jumps to a link in the other "Document Browser" window. This allows you to view both of the two linked document locations at the same time.

Deleting internal links

To delete an internal link, right-click on the link and choose Delete Link from the context menu.

Internal links in videos

You can also link a video clip to another video clip or document, e.g. a transcript.

  1. Open the video file in the Multimedia Browser
  2. Select a part of the video and click the Insert internal link icon from the toolbar.
  3. You can now choose the document or document segment that the anchor should be linked to, as is described above.

Internal links in memos

You can also insert internal links in memos to link a location in a memo to a location in another memo, document, or video:

  1. Open the memo.
  2. Mark the desired text in the memo that is to be linked.
  3. Right-click on the selection and select Set link anchor/target. Alternatively, you can click the Set link anchor/target icon on the Format tab in the Memo Manager.
  4. In the same way, set the link target in another memo or as described above in the "Document Browser" or in the "Multimedia Browser".

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