The Reports Process
The Reports process allows you to generate three different types of reports on the files and links that are contained in the LinkFixer Advanced database. The following sections explain the details of the Reports process.
Choose Report
Select the type of report you wish to produce from the choices shown below.
Regular Report
The “Regular Report” option is selected by default. This option generates a report that lists parent files followed by a list of all the child files that are pointed to by links contained within the parent files.
Cross Reference Report
Select “Cross Reference Report” option to generate a report that lists all child files with a list of all the parent files that have links pointing to the child files.
Broken Links Report
Select “Broken Links Report” option to generate a report that lists parent files that contain broken links pointing to child files that are missing.
Link Options
Hide Files with No Matching Links
Select this option to filter out parent files that contain no links matching your selection criteria.
Hide Broken Links
Select this option if you do not want to include broken links in the report. This selection is useful if you wish to generate a report showing only good (non-broken) links.
Hide Web Links
Select this option if you do not want to include HTTP, HTTPS links in the report. Selecting this option is recommended because validating hyperlinks pointing to external URL addresses can dramatically slow LinkFixer Advanced, due to the delays involved in connecting to, and receiving responses from, servers on the Internet. Example: http://www.microsoft.com.
Hide E-mail Links
Select this option to filter out e-mail links. Example: bill@microsoft.com.
Hide Folder Links
Select this option to filter out links pointing to folders (not pointing to files). Example: \\server1\share\documents\.
Hide Unsupported Links
Select this option to filter out links that LinkFixer Advanced does not currently support such as FTP links. Example: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com.
Hide Unrecognized Links
Select this option to filter out links that LinkFixer Advanced was not able to recognize.
Hide Internal Links
Select this option to filter out links pointing to internal document locations within the same file, such as bookmarks. Example: #TableOfContents.
Sort Report Using
Full File Specification
This option instructs LinkFixer Advanced to sort parent files in the report using the file’s full path, including folder name and file name. This is the default selection, because it allows all files located in the same folder to be grouped together in the report.
File Name
This option allows you to sort the report according to the basename of the file.
Filter Files
In this section, select the type of file that you want to cure, such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word. There are four options to filter the parent files, as shown below.
Process All Files in Selected Folders
Select this option if you want LinkFixer Advanced to scan all files.
Note: Hidden files and folders will be excluded by default. To process hidden files and folders, enable the setting “Show and process hidden files” in the “Files” category of the options screen.
Process Files Matching Specific File Extensions and Wildcards
Select this option if you want to cure specific types of files.
Process files matching filters that are different for each folder
Select this option if you want to define one or more specific file types for each selected folder. Click in the blank space in “File Filter” column. A window appears where you can select the desired file types, as shown below.
Process files using expert filtering rules
You can add one or more rules to include or exclude certain types of files using exact filtering criteria.
Process files using a file exclusion list
Select this option by checking the “Skip files matching paths in the specified list” box.
This will allow the user to skip any files during the process by providing the exact file path in an Excel spreadsheet and browsing to that file to add these paths to the filter.
There will be a message displayed in blue text revealing how many paths will be skipped.
Filter Links
In this section, you can filter the links that you want to inoculate. There are four options to filter the links, as listed below.
Process all links in selected files
Select this option if you want to inoculate all links in selected files.
Process links matching specific file extensions and wildcards
Select this option if you want to inoculate the links of specific file types. For example: inoculate all links of Microsoft Excel file types.
Process links matching filters that are different for each folder
Select this option to filter links for specific file types based on individually selected folders.
Filter links using expert filtering rules
You can add one or more rules to include or exclude links using very exact filtering criteria.
Filter links using a link exclusion list
Select this option by checking the “Skip links matching paths in the specified list” box.
This will allow the user to skip any links during the process by providing the exact file path in an Excel spreadsheet and browsing to that file to add these paths to the filter.
There will be a message displayed in blue text revealing how many paths will be skipped.
Preview Matching Links
This section displays a list of links (that point to child files) that match the selected and filtered files and links. You will see a preview of all links for which the report will be created. The following information appears in this section.
- Path of parent file and child file
- Number of links in parent and child files
- Status of links: There can be different statuses for different links. For example: If any link is broken, you will see the status as “Broken”. When a link is not broken, you will see the status as “Good”. If any links have inoculated, you will see the status as “Inoculated”.
Run report
When processing is finished, a “Summary” window displays within the “Regular Report Process Dashboard” view, providing you with a summary of how many files and links were processed and how long the process took to perform.
Summary report for the Regular Report process
After the Regular Report process is complete, click the {View Process Summary} ribbon menu button. The “Regular Report” window opens, as shown below.
Cross-Reference and Broken Links reports
Follow the same steps discussed above to create these other two types of reports.
Cross-Reference Report
The Cross-Reference Report shows child files in the database, and lists under each child file the parent files containing links that point to that child file.
Broken Links Report
The Broken Links Report shows parent files in the database, and lists under each parent file the broken links contained in each parent file.