After having now spent quite a lot of time on this issue, the answer seems to involve a lot of heavy lifting with CSS and Java Script. Wondering about the possibility of adding the Bootstrap external link icon (https://icons.getbootstrap.com/icons/box-arrow-up-right/) and `target="_blank" rel="noopener"` (<https://web.dev/external-anchors-use-rel-noopener/>) to links in the body (not navbar, toc, or sidebars) that begin with http(s). My current solution works, but I cannot get the icon color to match the link color:

```
/* Display an icon after external links */

main > p a[href^="http://"]:after,
main > p a[href^="https://"]:after {
    content: url(./images/box-arrow-up-right.svg);
    vertical-align: 0%;
    display: inline;
    text-decoration: none;
    padding-left: .25rem;
    padding-right: .35rem;
}
```

<img width="1370" alt="Screen Shot 2021-08-04 at 4 49 14 PM" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/12160301/128269841-786ede17-70ca-4420-8ace-31fb1d93920b.png">

dragonstyle
2021-08-04T23:48:32Z
apreshill
closed
[FR] Add way to configure external links with an icon that matches links
https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues/82