Link To a Document In Another Document Library
Is it possible to link to a document in a document library when the document is stored in another document library? Yes it it … How do we do it? Read on …
You can use Content Types to do this. A Content Type is a sort of template for types of documents you store in a library.
We use the Content Type “Link to a Document” to link to a document that could be stored in another document library.
If the document library where you want to use the “Link to a Document” hasn’t been setup to use Content Types, you’ll have to click Settings, Document Library Settings, there you’ll need to access the Advanced Settings.
We need to add a Content Type, but before we can do this we’ll have to tell our Document Library that it can make use of different Content Types. Select “Yes” for the “Allow management of Content Types“.
When you return to the Document Library Settings, you’ll see a new section called Content Types, this is where we’ll add a new Content Type, click “Add from exisiting Content Type“.
The content type we need is “Link to a Document“, add it here.
When you return to your Document Library and click new, you’ll see that you have a new option to choose from, “Link to a Document“.
Let’s make a link to a Document in another Document Library, click “Link to a Document”. You’ll have to enter a name for the Link and enter the path to the Document you want to link to.
After confirming this is what your link looks like.
We made link to a document that’s saved in another document library, whenever you make a change to the master document, you don’t need to worry about the link, it will point to the changed document.
If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.
May 7th, 2008 at 16:37
Great! Fantastic! There are so many other sites telling people how to do this in some goofy way by editing the background XML settings or by simply posting “meta-refresh” HTML pages. This is exactly what people need.
May 9th, 2008 at 13:08
Great!!! Up to now I always heard “this is impossible, at least tedious”.
I will come back to this page, thanks a lot.
June 23rd, 2008 at 22:18
Beautiful! thanks this was exactly what I needed.
February 2nd, 2010 at 19:33
It does not work for me. After following your instructions, I get the “Upload Document” site and field, not the Document Name & URL fields you show above.
Can you help?
July 14th, 2010 at 01:17
I got the same results as Dan. Followed the step, click “Link to a Document” under “New” and it opens the page “Upload Document”.
November 25th, 2010 at 15:41
The ability to link to a document is fab, but what my users want to see is the version number of the ORIGINAL document – any bright ideas on how to do this?
TIA
March 9th, 2011 at 12:09
This is interesting to know that it can be done (and did work for me in SP2010), though not very useful when you’re managing large numbers of files. What I’m losing my hair over is this…
Team Site A is parent to sub-sites 1,2,3 (lets say they’re all Document Workspaces), which corespond in real-life to individual projects the team is working on.
The sub-sites’ Shared Documents libriries contain only the files related to the individual projects, whereas the parent site’s Shared Documents is for the team as a whole.
Rather than having duplicate copies of files on parent & child (and thus violating any sense of version control), how do I get the sub-sites’ libraries to report thier contents to the parent’s library?
Or better yet, how do I create one library that they all share?
(Odd that its called Shared Documents, when there isn’t much sharing going on.)
TIA
March 22nd, 2011 at 08:14
I have been looking for a guide how to do this! Thank you so much!
June 10th, 2011 at 13:57
How are permissions handled in this situation? Lets say I have a home page and everyone has access to that site and it’s contents. Lets say I also have a number of department sites and those have unique security settings and only specific AD groups have rights to those sites. Can you create a link to a document on a global home page (that everyone has access to) to a document in a department site (that a limited group has access to) without SP changing the security settings on the department site?
July 6th, 2011 at 07:16
Thanks for the guide! It was really helpful. Sharepoint kan be a bit tricky sometimes ;=)
September 19th, 2011 at 15:20
Awesome Article kudos!!!
My Requirement as follows, I have a set of documents and their parents and their parents.
Like Doc1–>Component 1–> Element 1
Doc2–>Component 1–> Element 1
To maintain, this mapping, I can creat a document library and dump all my documents and creat links in Component 1 folder and then create a link Folder Element…Is it work ??
Secondly, can I save entire site as template, and repopulate same for differnt sites ???
Suggestions Apprecatied.
ROY
November 1st, 2011 at 10:53
I got the same results as Dan and Nate. Followed the step, click “Link to a Document” under “New” and it opens the page “Upload Document”.
January 6th, 2012 at 14:08
Well thanks a lot, but i have 1 question here:
Can I refer to a document located on a different website? i mean if my documents are on mysiteA can i link to a document on someoneSiteB?