How to Create Hyperlinks to a File in Firefox
Imagine being able to launch local files from your browser by clicking a few buttons. Firefox allows you to open any file that the browser supports by using a hyperlink. Each file on your hard drive has a unique URL. Once you know a file's URL, you can create a hyperlink for it and bookmark that link. By bookmarking important files in Firefox, you can access them quickly without leaving the browser.
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Instructions
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Launch Windows Explorer, and navigate to a folder that contains a text, image or MP3 file.
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Right-click one of those files, and then click "Create Shortcut." Windows creates a new shortcut icon and places it in the window.
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Right-click that shortcut, and click "Properties." The Properties window opens and displays a text box named "Target." This text box contains the full path name of the file.
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Launch "Firefox." Locate the address bar at the top of the browser, and delete any URL that appears there.
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Type "file:///" in the address bar. Position your cursor at the end of that string, and press "Ctrl" and "V" to paste the clipboard contents there. If you copied a file named "C:\MyMusic\MySong.mp3," your address bar would appear as follows after formatting the text:
file:///C:\MyMusic\MySong.mp3
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Replace all the backward (\) slashes with forward slashes. In this example, the resulting hyperlink string would look like this:
file:///C:/MyMusic/MySong.mp3
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Press "Enter." Firefox will open the file. If it is a text or image file, it will appear in the browser. If it is an MP3 file, the browser will play it.
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Tips & Warnings
Create a hyperlink to any local file by placing "file:///" in front of the file name and reversing the slashes in the text. By creating a shortcut as described in these steps, you can copy the full path name of files quickly. To bookmark a local file, use the same procedure you use to bookmark a website.
If you know the name and directory path of a file, you can simply type it in the address bar and format it as described previously. The shortcut method comes in handy when your target file lies nested deeply with a series of folders and subfolders. By creating a shortcut, you can let Windows figure out the path name and display it in the Target text box located in the shortcut's Properties window.
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