Documents and hyperlinks

You can use document and hyperlink fields to include documents or links to other iBase records in your database. When you are editing records, you can load documents or add links to them. When you are not editing, you can access the documents or records.

About this task

Document fields are used to store documents in a record in the database. The document is represented on charts by its icon. You add a document to the database by loading it using a Document type field.

Common document types include:

Type

File extension

Microsoft Word document

.doc

File format that many word-processing programs understand

.rtf

Text document (no formatting)

.txt

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet

.xls

When a document is loaded, you can open the file, save a copy, or delete it from the record. Although the contents of documents can be added to the Search 360 index, you cannot search on Document type fields by using the Find or Select options.

To load a graphic to represent an entity on a chart, use a picture type field instead.

In addition to standard documents, iBase can store Analyst’s Notebook (.anb) charts. When a chart is stored, its entities, links, and attributes are indexed and can be found using Search 360, making individual chart items searchable and retrievable for further analysis. Stored charts can be reopened in Analyst’s Notebook, and chart items can be reused in new analysis within iBase.

Note: iBase prevents you from opening certain types of files that could contain malicious code. For more information, see Blocked file types.

Procedure

Hyperlink fields are used to store links to documents or iBase records. To enter a hyperlink:

  1. Browse for the required document, or click to type the target of the hyperlink.

  2. To add another hyperlink, click Add to display a blank hyperlink field. For example:

    Target

    Format example

    Web page

    		http://www.example.com

    File

    		C:\documents\report.doc

    iBase record

    		#PER15 (where PER15 is the Record ID of an iBase record, and # identifies the text as a Record ID rather than a web page or file)