Resolving conrefs and keyrefs

Learn how to quickly replace content references and keyword references with relevant content in oXygen XML Editor.

When preparing your project for localization, you can consider replacing content references (conrefs) and keyword references (keyrefs) with appropriate content.

Replacing conrefs and keyrefs with plain text may be useful, for example, when you have legacy content containing a lot of references and need to localize it without extensive rewriting.

Important: Once you resolve conrefs and keyrefs, they no longer exist in the localized text. You should decide which option brings more benefits. If your project uses conrefs and keyrefs solely for non-translatable terms (such as trademarks), it may be useful to keep them. On the other hand, if such references point to single words or phrases, you may want to replace them with plain text to improve translation quality.

To resolve all conrefs and keyrefs in a topic in oXygen XML Editor, follow these steps:

  1. Open a topic containing references and switch to the Author mode.
    Author mode in oXygen
  2. Go to DITA > Replace All References with Content.
    'DITA' menu in oXygen with the 'Replace All References with Content' option
All references in the topic are replaced with relevant content.
A comparison of DITA code before and after resolving references. All references are replaced with appropriate content.