I’m pretty sure that doclinks have been in Notes since the first day I used it back in 1991 (version 2.0a – I was a very young man, just out of junior school).

A doclink is a link to a Notes document – click on a doclink which appears in an e-mail, calendar appointment or document of any type and it will navigate you straight to the linked document. Knowing how many users struggle with the sizes of their inbox, and in the interests of better co-ordinating content, the humble doclink is a great way of managing the idea of storing file attachments in a shared place (rather than sending said attachments in an e-mail).

There are a few ways of creating a doclink. In these examples let’s go for the common use case of sending the doclink(s) in an e-mail.

Method 1 – go to a Notes view and select the document in question, or open the document, and then from the Notes menu select Edit, Copy As, Document Link. Then go to your e-mail and paste the doclink in at the current typing position.

Method 2 – drag and drop. Ensure your e-mail is open. Go back to the Notes view containing the document, click on that document and drag it up to the tab of the new e-mail – hold it there and after a second the focus will switch to the e-mail. Continuing to hold, move the mouse pointer down to where you want the doclink placed, and then drop.

Method 2.5 – drag and drop again. This time the document to be linked to is already open. Go into your e-mail, grab the tab of the document, and then drag it down into the e-mail and drop it.

Method 3 – what if you want to share a number of documents? Simple. Select the documents in the Notes view (use Ctrl plus click to select multiple documents) and then press the ‘Copy Selected as Table’ button on the toolbar. Then go into your e-mail and paste.