Testing and Publishing a Site > Checking links in a page or site

Checking links in a page or site

Fixing broken links (links that no longer follow a valid path or point to a nonexistent file) on a large site can be a tedious and time-consuming problem. This is because a large site can contain hundreds of links to internal and external documents, and the links may change over time. Orphaned files (files that still exist in the site but are no longer linked to any file in the site) can be a problem too, because they may take up disk space and confuse other team members working on the site.

Use the Check Links feature to search for broken links and unreferenced files in an open file, a portion of a local site, or an entire local site. The only links that Dreamweaver verifies are links to documents within the site; Dreamweaver compiles a list of external links that appear in the selected document or documents, but it does not verify them.

When Dreamweaver has finished checking the links in the specified files, it opens the Link Checker dialog box. This dialog box displays a list of broken links, external links (links that Dreamweaver can't check because they are outside the site), and orphaned files. For more information, see Opening linked documents in Dreamweaver.

To check links within the current document:

1	Save the file to a location within a local site.
2	Choose File > Check Links.

To check links within a portion of a local site:

1	Choose Window > Site Files to open the Site window.
2	Choose a site from the Sites pop-up menu.
3	Under Local folder view, select the files or folders to check.
4	Initiate the check using either of these methods:
	Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) one of the selected files and choose Check Links > Selected Files/Folders from the context menu.
	Choose File > Check Links.
5	Select a specific link report from the Show pop-up menu. Your choices are Broken Links, External Links, and Orphaned Files.
	You can only check for Orphaned Files when you check links across an entire site.
6	A list of files that fit the report type you selected appears in the Link Checker dialog box.

To check links in the entire site:

1	Choose Site > Check Links Sitewide.
	The Link Checker dialog box appears.
2	Select a specific link report from the Show pop-up menu. Your choices are Broken Links, External Links, and Orphaned Files.
3	A list of files that fit the report type you selected appears in the Link Checker dialog box.

Note: If you selected Orphaned Files as your report type, you can delete orphaned files from the Link Checker dialog box directly by selecting a file from the list and pressing the Delete key.

To save the complete report as a tab-delimited text file:

Click Save.