Displaying Referenced Content

The references to external entities, XInclude, DITA conrefs, and constructs in other vocabularies with displayable referenced content are expanded by default in Author mode and the referenced content is displayed. The referenced resources are loaded and displayed inside the element or entity that references them, but the displayed content cannot be modified directly in the document. You can control this behavior from the Author preferences page. If the Display referenced content option is not selected, the referenced resources are not automatically loaded and displayed, but each reference can be expanded on demand by using the small expansion button located next to each element that contains references.

If the referenced resource cannot be resolved, an error will be presented inside the element that refers them instead of the content.

If you want to make modifications to the referenced content, you must open the source where the referenced resource resides. The referenced resource can be opened quickly by clicking the link (marked with the icon, or the icon for key-based references) that is displayed before the referenced content or by using the Edit Reference action from the contextual menu (in this case, the cursor is placed at the precise location where the action was invoked). The referenced resource is resolved through the XML Catalog set in the XML Catalog preferences page.