activate.external.olinks
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## activate.external.olinks

activate.external.olinks — Make external olinks into active links

## Synopsis

    <xsl:param name="activate.external.olinks" select="1"></xsl:param>

## Description

If `activate.external.olinks` is nonzero (the default), then any olinks that reference another document become active links that can be clicked on to follow the link. If the parameter is set to zero, then external olinks will have the appropriate link text generated, but the link is not made active. Olinks to destinations in the current document remain active.

To make an external olink active for HTML outputs, the link text is wrapped in an `a` element with an `href` attribute. To make an external olink active for FO outputs, the link text is wrapped in an `fo:basic-link` element with an `external-destination` attribute.

This parameter is useful when you need external olinks to resolve but not be clickable. For example, if documents in a collection are available independently of each other, then having active links between them could lead to unresolved links when a given target document is missing.

The epub stylesheets set this parameter to zero by default because there is no standard linking mechanism between Epub documents.

If external links are made inactive, you should consider setting the stylesheet parameter `olink.doctitle` to `yes`. That will append the external document's title to the link text, making it easier for the user to locate the other document.

An olink is considered external when the `current.docid` stylesheet parameter is set to some value, and the olink's `targetdoc` attribute has a different value. If the two values match, then the link is considered internal. If the `current.docid` parameter is blank, or the `olink` element does not have a `targetdoc` attribute, then the link is considered to be internal and will become an active link.

See also `olink.doctitle`, `prefer.internal.olink`.

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