#### 29.2.1 Understanding trails of links

A trail of links, often called a “breadcrumb trail”, typically looks something like this:

Home & Garden > Kitchen > Small appliances > Coffee makers

The trail does not necessarily consist of links someone followed to reach a given page; instead, it represents the hierarchical position of the page in the structure of the HTML document.

Each heading in your DITA document that has subheadings can be used as a link in a trail leading to successively lower subheadings. For each trail of links DITA2Go inserts the current value of predefined macro <$_trail>, which consists of the following:

- Starting HTML code for the trail
- Text of each item in the trail (content of the heading in question)
- Separator code between items in the trail
- Ending code for the trail.

Except for the very last item, a trail of links can include only headings at which file splits occur; see §27.3 Splitting files.

Trails of links are not compatible with [HTMLOptions]SmartSplit (see §27.3.2.1 Preventing splits that leave dangling headings). If you set SmartSplit=Yes, wherever a heading level is missing the previous heading in the trail will be duplicated. The link will be correct, but the heading text will not.

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Parent Topic: 29.2 Generating trails of links

Sibling Topics:

29.2.2 Specifying whether to include trails of links

29.2.3 Specifying what to include in trails of links

29.2.4 Specifying heading levels for trails of links

29.2.5 Specifying where to display trails of links