How to do a link to a file in rst with sphinx?

Question

I am writing a documentation and I would like to include links to pdf files or zip archives. How can I achieve that using rst language and sphinx ?

If I do that

here is a pdf file : `pdf <doc/mypdf.pdf>`_

It does not work because, during the compilation sphinx do not copy the contains of the doc directory (I use the makefile generated by sphinx-quickstart).

On the contrary, using the image directive :

.. image:: img/plop.png

sphinx does copy the plop.png image in build directory. How can I obtain the same behavior for pdf or zip archive ?

Solution

A solution is to use the :download: “role” (detailed in the sphinx documentation on roles).

Here is a short example assuming you have a file mypdf.pdf in a directory doc. The directory doc and your rst file must be in the same directory:

here is a pdf file :download:`pdf <doc/mypdf.pdf>`

Note that you mustn't put a blank space between :download: and the path to the file.

Comments

[Bonlenfum]

try the :download: role -- see stackoverflow.com/questions/2921724/…

[Mad Physicist]

Alternatively, you can put your file in the _static folder (or whatever you configured that to be), and reference it directly from there.

[1313e]

This will only show a link to the PDF-file, not display the file itself (which is something I am struggling with at the moment).

[Henrik]

@1313e OP asked for a link. Have a try with .. figure:: doc/mypdf.pdf to show the PDF.

[Mayou36]

Link is outdated unfortunately. I did not find the updated version.

[Pierre H.]

@Mayou36: link to the :download: role documention is now fixed.