Summary

Hyperlinks can be created from one document to another, or to transcripts using the Autolink tool. To allow Autolink hyperlinks to be created, some preparatory work will need to be undertaken by the parties to ensure hyperlink ready references are include within the relevant documents. 

To ensure the preparation and Autolink process is as simple and efficient as possible, we've collated the formatting requirements and best practice information into our Referencing Guide. In doing so we've set out the overall process and the formatting requirements for including hyperlinks to other documents and transcripts, as well as important points to note in a two-part guide with one appendix.

We've set out links to each part of the guide:

The Next button at the bottom right of the page can be used to navigate to the next part of the guide.

Overview

References enclosed in curly (or square) brackets can be added as text to documents, allowing the creation of autolink hyperlinks so that users can select the hyperlink and be taken to the relevant target document or Opus 2 Transcript - therefore becoming a hyperlink ready reference. 

When running the Autolink tool, a Hyperlink Report would be created, listing all of the references found enclosed in the relevant bracket type, confirming if the hyperlink was successfully created or not. 

The Autolink tool scans the OCR'd data of a document, finds text within the relevant bracket type and then attempts to match the references to metadata assigned to documents. 

We've set out the formatting requirements and best practices for linking to both documents and transcripts, alongside information on our Hyperlink Overlay tool and the wider hyperlinking process. 

We strongly recommend the parties provide an example document which should contain a few hyperlink formatted references. The Solution Operations team can then check the formatting and test the links, before the parties undertake the wider referencing exercise. 

Overall Hyperlinking Process

  1. Upload Documents - The parties would need to prepare and provide PDF documents containing hyperlink ready references for upload, i.e. update the Word version (to be provided as a PDF) or insert text boxes into the margin of a  PDF. Within the instructional email, confirm which documents need hyperlinking as we do not automatically run the linking process on upload. 
    1. We are happy to initially receive documents that do not contain hyperlink ready references as these can then be replaced with the referenced versions at a later date. 
    2. Upon replacement, any user annotations made on the original document should be automatically transferred to the updated version during the replacement exercise, on the basis that the content and OCR data of the new file is not substantially different from the existing file on the platform.
  2. Run Autolink Tool - Once uploaded / replaced, Opus will run the Autolink tool across the relevant documents to detect and attempt to link any hyperlink ready references, listing the results in a Hyperlink Report. 
    1. Hyperlink Report - The report will contain a Summary page for the processed documents (detailing the number of Total References, Broken Links and Created Links) alongside individual reports (detailing any references detected and an Opus 2 Comment confirming the status of each link): 
      1. Created Links - Any references that are correctly formatted will be hyperlinked and listed as Linked in the report. 
      2. Broken Links - Any references that are incorrectly formatted will not be hyperlinked and will be listed as Not Linked in the report. 
  3. Fixing Incorrectly Formatted References - Any references that are incorrectly formatted can be addressed in one of two ways:
    1. Fix the References - The parties can amend the incorrectly formatted references in the offline PDF which is a more robust way to resolve any issues and allows for functionality on the platform, therefore being the recommended resolution.
      1. PDF Version - Ensure the PDF being updated does not have the Opus 2 pagination already applied.
      2. Provide for Replacement - Once amended, provide to Opus for replacement and include instructions to re-run the hyperlinking process. This will create any new hyperlinks and only the new links will be billable, you will not be charged again for any hyperlinks already created.  
      3. Amending References with Created Links - For any existing created hyperlinks that have been subsequently amended, the Autolink tool will not identify them as needing to be re-created. As such, the parties will need to flag any instances where this occurs in order for the outdated hyperlink to be removed and the newly updated hyperlink to be created.
    2. Manual Hyperlink - The parties can provide the correct reference and instruct us to create the hyperlink(s) manually. Although the hyperlink will direct the user to the correct document, the reference will not change on the face of the document. Also manual links are unstable so if the document needs to be replaced in the future, the parties will need to instruct us to create the manual links again.
More information on replacing documents can be found under the Replacements section here.