How to Paint Exterior Siding and Trim

This guide merges the roller queue’s paint-exterior-siding-and-fences job with the brush queue’s brush-paint-exterior-siding-trim job.

The can and the weather own the clock; no generic timetable overrides either.

Difficulty: the brush and roller strokes are learnable in an afternoon. Diagnosis, access, and refusing to coat damp or unsound work are the professional parts.

This guide’s hard boundary: it is a repaint guide for sound or repairable exterior siding and trim. Rotten members, failed flashing, active leaks, open joints that require carpentry, asbestos-cement siding, unknown factory finishes, and coatings that may contain lead can move the job out of ordinary paint work before a can opens.

Stop gate 1 — pre-1978 paint is a different job

If the building is pre-1978, or its age and coating history are unknown, do not begin an ordinary dry-scrape, power-sand, or heat-removal workflow. Exterior preparation is exactly the work that turns old lead paint into chips and inhalable dust.

For compensated work in pre-1978 housing and child-occupied facilities, the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting rule generally requires a certified firm, certified renovator oversight, lead-safe work practices, occupant information, containment, cleaning, and records unless the affected components are properly determined lead-free. A whole-house exterior repaint is not a plausible “minor touch-up” shortcut. Start with the current EPA contractor RRP requirements and EPA lead-safe work sequence.

A DIY owner is not thereby protected from the hazard. Follow EPA lead-safe containment and cleanup guidance, keep children and pets out, control chips at the ground, use dust-minimizing methods, and do not carry contaminated shoes, clothing, or tools into the house.

Do not use an open flame. Do not improvise high-heat removal on lead paint. Do not power-sand or power-grind painted surfaces without the RRP-compliant controls, attachments, and work practice the operation requires.

Lead containment changes setup, removal, cleanup, waste handling, and inspection. It is not a paragraph of PPE added to an otherwise ordinary scrape job.

The practical decision is simple: pre-1978 or unknown + paint disturbance → establish the lead-safe plan before choosing a roller.

Stop gate 2 — diagnose why the old coat failed

New paint is not a repair membrane. Find the failure mechanism first; otherwise the new film repeats it.

Read the coating, not just the color

Sound but dirty or chalked: the film remains bonded when scraped, but leaves powder on a dark rag or hand. Wash the chalk and contamination off; a new coating cannot bond to loose powder. If chalk remains after proper cleaning, use the coating maker’s recommended bonding/conditioning primer or remove farther. “Paint over it because it is still flat” is not a test.

Peeling to bare wood: cut a blister or lift a flake. Bare wood beneath points strongly to moisture breaking the bottom bond. Check roof and wall flashing, gutters, downspouts, window and door heads, end grain, failed sealant, shrubs holding water against the wall, plumbing or interior humidity, and missing ventilation.

Intercoat peeling: the lower coat remains on the substrate while a newer coat releases from it. Typical causes are chalk or contamination left under the repaint, an undulled glossy film, or an incompatible coat stack. Remove to a sound layer, wash, dull the remaining sheen, and use the primer specified for the old/new coating transition. Do not assume a premium topcoat can bond through a failed interface.

Small blisters over another paint layer: often application/solvent blistering rather than substrate moisture — paint laid too heavily or onto a hot, sunlit face can skin while solvent remains trapped. Scrape and sand to a sound layer and repaint inside the label’s surface-temperature and film-build limits, out of direct sun.

Crazing, checking, and alligatoring: a brittle multi-coat stack has lost its ability to move with the substrate. Fine surface crazing may accept sanding and a compatible repaint; deep cracks that reach bare wood require much more removal. Do not bridge an alligatored stack with another elastic coat and call the cracking gone.

Mildew or biological growth: identify and remove it with the coating or cleaner maker’s method, rinse as directed, and correct shade, vegetation, drainage, or ventilation conditions that keep the face wet. Painting over live growth creates a bonded coating over an unbonded contaminant.

Rust bleed, tannin bleed, and water stains: trace the source. Rusting fasteners need cleaning/replacement as appropriate and a compatible rust-inhibitive spot primer. Cedar/redwood extractive staining and knots need the coating maker’s stain-blocking primer. A stain that returns while the wall remains wet is a moisture diagnosis, not a request for another finish coat.

Soft, punky, split, or moving substrate: hand it to carpentry.

Decide the honest removal depth

Preserve every sound layer that can carry the new system. Clean, scrape loose edges, feather the transition, and stop when the blade meets a bonded film. Total stripping is justified by extensive failure, incompatible buildup, or a preservation specification — not by the idea that bare wood is automatically “more professional.” Historic profiles can be permanently rounded by aggressive sanding and eroded by blasting; Preservation Brief 10 specifically rejects high-pressure water blasting and sandblasting as general paint-removal methods on historic wood.

Stop gate 3 — identify the substrate and its coating system

This guide’s technique transfers across siding, but the primer and topcoat do not.

Previously painted wood clapboard, shingles, and trim: inspect moisture, rot, end grain, checks, fasteners, and the old coating stack. Bare and weathered wood normally needs the compatible exterior wood primer specified by the finish system.

Fiber-cement siding: follow that siding maker’s current cleaning, cut-edge, joint, and coating instructions. Do not sand it as if it were wood, and do not caulk manufacturer-designed joints or clearances by instinct.

Engineered-wood siding: preserve required gaps, flashings, and drainage details; coat field cuts and edges only as the product maker directs. Swollen edges are a moisture/repair issue.

Vinyl or aluminum siding: first confirm the coating is approved for that exact substrate and color range. Heat gain, movement, factory finish, oxidation, and adhesion are system-specific. A wood-primer recipe does not transfer.

Masonry, stucco, brick, and CMU: the deep-nap roller logic transfers, but moisture, alkalinity, efflorescence, cure, and masonry-primer gates make this a different coating system. The 3/4" covers in the graph can work the surface; that does not make a wood-siding paint suitable for it.

Asbestos-cement or unknown cementitious shingles: stop destructive prep and obtain an asbestos-aware condition and work plan. Do not sand, saw, drill, or wire-brush unknown legacy shingles as ordinary siding.

If those sources disagree with a rule of thumb, the product system wins.

The exact Hyde tool graph — role re-derived

Roller covers: nap follows siding texture

The hand test: if the face feels essentially flat, start at 3/8". If saw texture, deep grooves, or raised aggregate can be felt clearly, move to 3/4". The deciding inspection happens again after the first laid section: low-angle light showing dry valleys means the nap is too short or the lay was starved; fat stipple and edge beads on a flat face mean the nap is too long. Pressing harder fixes neither error.

Four-inch flats: coating chemistry first, grade second

| Coating and finish need | Exact linked SKU | Honest role | Boundary |

Treat it as oil-rated, not as proved natural hog bristle, and do not infer latex compatibility. |

The concrete false-neighbor test is the can: waterborne acrylic siding paint routes to 80005/80304 and away from 80055/80354/80454. Oil or alkyd routes to the natural-bristle lane (or Hyde’s oil-rated 47383) and away from a polyester utility flat. Width answers area only; it does not erase chemistry. All 4" members are broad lay/back-brush tools, not trim-cutting brushes.

Oval angled brushes: capacity and line geometry are proven; coating compatibility is not

Every oval below packs more filament behind its nominal face than a flat and uses an angled tip to cut a line.

False for the 2-1/2" buyer who needs more steering control.

False for the job whose whole cost is reloading and therefore needs maximum reservoir.

False for small trim or the sharpest visible line.

Do not invent a difference to manufacture a buyer choice.

If the package or current manufacturer source does not identify a filament compatible with the coating in hand, do not buy an oval on geometry alone. Choose a chemistry-confirmed flat/sash instead. A fat reservoir of the wrong filament is still the wrong brush.

Everything else the job requires

This 16-SKU graph is the application union, not a complete exterior kit. The job also needs containment/drop protection, scraper(s), abrasives and dust extraction appropriate to the coating hazard, washing equipment, moisture inspection, repair materials, compatible primer, paintable exterior sealant where designed joints require it, pails/grids/frames, extension poles, masking, clean rags, and access equipment. Link those exact Hyde products only after their own job graphs have been re-derived; no SKU is invented here.

Preparation — do every adhesion step before a finish step

Survey and mark the elevation

Walk each face in raking morning or afternoon light. Mark loose paint, soft wood, failed sealant, open joints, rusting fasteners, stains, mildew, splashback, and every water path above the visible failure. Photograph details before removal on historic work. Decide where the elevation can end naturally: outside corners, inside corners, downspouts, board ends, control joints, or a full architectural bay.

Probe suspect wood gently. Sound wood resists and holds an edge; punky wood crushes or accepts the probe. Do not fill over rot. Check that siding is secure before dragging a loaded roller across it.

Fix water and carpentry before washing

Repair leaking gutters and downspouts, bad flashing, failed roof edges, open penetrations, and rotten or split members. Restore required clearances from grade, roofs, decks, and vegetation. Correct the source of peeling, not just the peel.

This is also the caulk decision:

Replace failed sealant only at joints designed to be sealed: selected trim-to-siding transitions, penetrations, and stationary joints identified by the siding/window system.

Preserve designed drainage: lap-siding overlaps, weep paths, window/door drainage holes, and manufacturer-required butt-joint or bottom-edge clearances are not “cracks” to fill.

Remove failed caulk to sound edges; a new bead over split, dirty sealant inherits the failure beneath it.

Use a paintable exterior sealant compatible with both substrate and coating. Follow its required joint size, backing, primer, tooling, cure, and paint-over window. Those are sealant facts, not painter folklore.

Where bare porous wood will sit under a caulk edge, follow the coating/sealant system’s order. Many systems want bare wood spot-primed before sealant; some sealants require a different surface. The two labels decide.

Protect the site, then wash

Cover plants without cooking them under plastic; uncover and rinse as the cleaning product directs. Protect fixtures, masonry, roofs, decks, paving, glass, neighboring property, and vehicles from cleaner, chips, and overspray. Lead-safe work uses its own compliant ground and vertical containment.

Remove dirt, salts, chalk, mildew treatment residue, cobwebs, and grease. Work from the cleaner maker’s dilution and dwell instructions; rinse thoroughly. A pressure washer is a rinsing tool here, not a paint-removal chisel: forcing water behind laps and trim creates the moisture problem the paint job is meant to solve, and cutting the wood face ruins the substrate.

Dry — by evidence, not optimism

Do not paint a wall merely because its face feels dry. Laps, end grain, joints, shaded sides, repaired pockets, and pressure-washed wood hold water after the sunny field appears ready. Allow a real dry-weather interval, then check the slowest-drying locations.

No rain or wash water inside the specified dry window. No dew expected before the film can resist it. No surface below or above the label’s surface-temperature limits. Air temperature alone is not enough: dark siding in sun can be far hotter than the forecast, while a shaded north wall can remain cool and damp.

Scrape, sand, feather, and clean again

Under the lead-safe or ordinary prep plan established above, remove every loose edge until the scraper stops at bonded paint. Sand the remaining transition so a fingertip does not catch a hard lip; the finish coat will not hide a cliff. Dull glossy sound paint. Remove gray, loose wood fiber until the primer has coherent wood to bind, but do not grind historic profiles away in pursuit of new lumber.

Vacuum and wipe off prep dust using the method permitted by the hazard plan. A surface can be perfectly feathered and still fail because sanding dust is now the bond layer.

Prime the right failures

Prime bare wood, weathered wood, repairs, stains, knots/extractives, prepared metal, and incompatible old/new interfaces with the primer specified for that condition. Spot-prime isolated bare areas when the remaining coating is clean, sound, dull, and compatible; full-prime when the substrate/coating system or widespread condition calls for it. Primer is not a universal extra coat, and topcoat is not a primer substitute.

Brush primer into end grain, lower board edges where the system permits coating, cut ends, checks, nail holes, and repaired pockets — the places water enters first. Do not leave exterior primer weathering indefinitely; topcoat inside its stated window.

After primer, make compatible sealant repairs in the order the system requires, tool them cleanly, and let them reach the sealant maker’s paint-ready state. A wet bead under paint wrinkles and splits; a bead left high becomes a permanent ridge.

Paint sequence — keep the system wet, top-down, and finish at natural breaks

Box the coating and stage one elevation

If more than one can of the same color will feed an elevation, mix (“box”) them together in a larger clean vessel, then maintain one working supply. Small tint differences become stripes when cans change mid-wall. Stir before starting and at each refill.

Stage only what can be completed within the day’s shade and weather window. Put the correct cover on the correct frame, de-lint it if appropriate, dampen/condition only if the cover and coating maker allow, and load it evenly on a grid or tray. Confirm brush chemistry before it enters the can.

Work high to low, but decide color order before the first stroke

A durable general sequence is:

soffits, eaves, and fascia;

corner boards, casings, bands, shutters, doors, and other trim;

window/sash detail and touch-in;

foundations or adjacent masonry only as their separate coating system directs.

This lets drips land on unfinished work and lets the final trim color sharpen body-color edges. Some color schemes or access plans reverse body and trim; the invariant is that the sequence is planned, high work is completed before low finish work, and every edge has one final owner.

For windows and doors, move from recessed members outward and top down so each fresh stroke has somewhere clean to finish. Keep paint out of weatherstripping, tracks, hardware, drainage holes, and operable clearances. Open and move operable sash/doors while the coating is at the maker-approved handling point so they do not cure shut.

Cut and roll as one operation — never two disconnected crews

Do not cut an entire elevation and return hours later to roll it. The cut edge will have skinned, and the rolled field will overlap it as a second film, producing a picture-frame band in sheen or color.

Instead, work a controllable band:

Brush corners, the underside of the next lap, trim edges, fasteners, and recesses the roller cannot reach.

Roll the adjacent field while that brush work remains open.

Back-brush the rolled coating immediately, before it begins to set.

Finish the board/course to a natural stop and repeat.

One person can perform the sequence in short sections. A two-person crew is faster only when the brush worker stays just ahead of the roller and the back-brush never falls behind the coating’s open time.

Roll by the siding’s grain and relief

Smooth lap siding — 47361/47362, 3/8": lay paint along the board, not as a room-wall W. Work a few courses at a time, load enough to maintain film, and finish each course end-to-end where possible. Brush the lower lap edge and butt ends; the roller face cannot turn the corner.

Rough-sawn/T1-11/heavy texture — 47365, 3/4": load the long nap fully and let it pump coating into the relief under a light hand. Cross-work the first lay only as needed to reach grooves, then finish with the grain. Follow immediately with a coating-compatible 4" flat to push paint into checks and even the film.

Open production field — 47369, 18" × 3/4": use only where the geometry stays open for long passes. An 18" cover loaded with exterior coating is a heavy two-hand/pole system, not a 9" shortcut. A wide frame, correct bucket/grid, stable access, and a back-brush worker are part of the method. Hand the field back to 47365 around obstacles.

Semi-rough utility/masonry — 99304, 3/4": use at the nap/series role only, after the masonry coating system is established.

The roller loads the surface; the brush makes the coat belong to it. On rough wood, back-brushing is load-bearing — it works paint into saw marks, checks, butt ends, and narrow shadow lines the roller bridges. On smooth factory-made siding, follow the siding/coating maker’s application method; aggressive back-brushing is not automatically required.

Brush trim with the tool that fits both can and geometry

Use a 4" flat on broad fascia, wide corner boards, doors, and back-brushing — nowhere that its face overhangs the member. Load only the working third, distribute the coating, then finish with long light strokes along the member. A wide brush stores paint at its heel; keep the ferrule clean and comb/wash the heel before it cures.

Use an oval only after its filament is confirmed for the coating. Load its belly, tap off the outside, cut from the long point, and let the oval reservoir feed the line. Choose LS versus XL by the actual cost:

visible line and wrist control → 80763 (2-1/2" LS) or 80764 (3" LS);

long thirsty run and reloads/ladder moves dominate → 80733 or 80768 (2-1/2" maximum capacity), or 80734 (3" maximum capacity);

very crisp finish line or small detail → none of these ovals; hand off to a narrower chemistry-confirmed sash/trim brush.

For oil/alkyd, use the verified oil lane. The 80055/80354/80454 natural-bristle members fail in waterborne paint; 47383 is oil-rated but its exact fill is unresolved. For waterborne exterior acrylic, use a chemistry-confirmed polyester/synthetic member such as 80005 or 80304 at the grade the finish warrants.

Keep the wet edge and choose work breaks before fatigue chooses them

Follow the shade around the building. Direct sun and wind shorten open time; cool damp shade lengthens dry and can push the work toward dew. Do not chase the sun with thicker paint or thinner — obey the product.

Good breaks: an outside corner, an inside corner, a downspout line, the end of a full board, a band board, a door/window assembly completed as one unit, or the complete elevation. Bad breaks: the middle of a clapboard, halfway down a corner board, across the face of a door, or anywhere tomorrow’s overlap will sit in open view.

Finish every stroke back into wet coating. Do not “fix” a setting section with one more pass; dragging a skin produces ropes, lap sheen, and brush marks. Let it dry, sand/prepare as the system permits, and correct it in the next coat.

Access and fall boundary — painting does not suspend gravity

Exterior painting combines wet tools, side reach, wind, uneven soil, doors and walks below, overhead electrical hazards, and repeated ladder moves. Treat access as a work system, not as something the extension pole makes optional.

Inspect ladders before use; remove damaged equipment from service. Set on firm, level footing, clear the top and bottom, support both rails, use the ladder only as designed, and keep rungs free of paint and other slip hazards.

Set a non-self-supporting ladder at the proper angle — OSHA’s construction rule uses approximately one foot out for every four feet of working length — and secure it where required. Never move, shift, or extend it while occupied.

Face the ladder and maintain three-point contact while climbing. Hoist tools or use a controlled tool system; do not climb with a loaded pail in one hand.

Keep the belt buckle/body between the rails. If the brush will not reach without leaning, descend and move the ladder. Do not “walk” it, bridge ladders with planks, stand on a stepladder’s top/top step, or rest a ladder on weak gutters.

Use nonconductive side rails where contact with energized equipment is possible, and survey overhead lines before raising or moving any long ladder, pole, or scaffold component.

A ladder is poor production staging for long two-handed rolling/back-brushing. Pump-jack or supported scaffold, lift, or another properly designed platform is often the correct access for a whole elevation. OSHA requires trained setup/use and applicable guardrail or personal-fall-protection systems; see the current OSHA ladder standard and supported-scaffold fall-protection requirements.

Barricade the area below. A scraper, brush, or paint-loaded cover is a falling-object hazard even when the worker never falls.

An extension pole reduces climbs; it does not make overreaching, roof-edge work, or an unstable ladder safe.

Second coat, cleanup, and inspection

Recoat only when the film is ready

Use the topcoat’s stated recoat window, adjusted for actual surface temperature, humidity, shade, and film thickness. “Dry to touch” is not automatically ready to recoat. Inspect first-coat adhesion and coverage before burying a prep failure under another film.

Repeat the same natural-break and wet-edge sequence. A second coat is not permission to starve the first or leave dry valleys; it builds the specified system and corrects uniformity, not diagnosis.

Clean by coating chemistry

Waterborne paint: remove excess, wash compatible polyester/synthetic brushes and covers promptly with the maker-approved water/soap method, comb the brush heel, rinse, reshape, and dry without crushing the fill.

Oil/alkyd/varnish: clean the compatible natural/oil-rated brush and cover with the coating maker’s solvent sequence. Keep solvent out of drains and dispose/recycle it under local rules.

Oil-wet rags and applicators can self-heat while curing.

Do not leave a roller wrapped indefinitely.

Lead-job chips, dust, plastic, filters, and cleanup materials stay inside the RRP waste/cleaning protocol. Do not scatter them into soil or ordinary shop cleanup.

Inspect from inches away and from the curb

Inspect each elevation in low-angle light after it dries:

dry valleys in rough siding, T1-11 grooves, lower lap edges, butt ends, and underside shadows;

fat stipple or roller edge beads on smooth siding;

picture-framing where cut-in dried before rolling;

lap marks at mid-board work breaks;

misses behind downspouts, shutters, fixtures, cables, and vegetation;

runs below window sills, band boards, and trim returns;

sealed drainage holes, bonded sash/doors, painted hardware, or caulk placed across a drainage detail;

returning blisters or stains, which mean the moisture/stain diagnosis remains open;

chips, masking, fasteners, tools, and contaminated ground protection left behind.

Then step back. Color and sheen discontinuities that vanish at arm’s length can read across the street. The job closes only when both inspections pass and the repaired water paths remain dry after weather.

What goes wrong — symptom, cause, repair

“The new paint peeled with the old layer attached.” The failure is below the new film: moisture, chalk, contamination, or a bad intercoat bond was never removed. Cut the failure open, identify the released interface, correct the source, and prepare to the next sound layer.

“The roller painted the peaks but not the grooves.” Under-napped or starved. Smooth-siding 3/8" was put on rough siding, or the 3/4" was not loaded. Move to 47365/47369 for rough work, load fully, use a light hand, and back-brush.

“The smooth siding looks like orange peel.” Over-napped or overworked. A 3/4" cover belongs on texture; move to 47361/47362 for smooth-sawn work and lay a controlled film.

“The cut line is a different sheen.” Cut-in dried before the field arrived, or the edge received two full films. Cut and roll in short connected sections; do not cut the elevation first.

“The brush went limp and will not hold a line.” Natural bristle entered waterborne paint. The 80055/80354/80454 oil lane was used in latex; change to a confirmed polyester/synthetic brush. Cleaning will not reliably restore a water-swollen natural-bristle head to production shape.

“The oval holds paint but the coating is failing in the bristles.” Geometry was purchased without chemistry. The five oval records do not state filament; stop and confirm the fill or move to a chemistry-confirmed brush.

“Blisters appeared on the hot sunny wall.” The surface was coated too hot or too heavily and the top skinned over trapped solvent/water. Remove the failed film to sound material and repaint within label conditions, following the shade.

“Peeling returned at the same sill or board end.” The water route remains open. Re-check flashing, end grain, joints, fasteners, gutter discharge, and interior moisture. Another coat is not the repair.

“Caulk split or paint wrinkled over it.” Wrong joint, incompatible sealant, poor substrate, excessive bead, or paint applied before the sealant’s paint-ready window.

“The trim is stuck shut.” Paint bridged an operable clearance or cured against weatherstripping. Separate carefully without tearing the film, clean the prohibited contact area, and preserve operation during the next coat.

Buyer tests — decisions that must be possible from this guide alone

Smooth fiber-cement face, waterborne exterior acrylic, ordinary house geometry: confirm the siding maker accepts the coating; choose 47361 (or 47362 at whole-job quantity) for the field and 80304 for broad back-brush/trim work. Reject 47365/99304 as over-napped and reject 80055/80354/80454 as natural-bristle oil tools. This call is true here and false on rough-sawn cedar.

Rough-sawn wood siding around many windows, waterborne exterior acrylic: choose 47365, not 47369 — same 3/4" job depth, but the 9" fits the cut-up geometry. Pair with a chemistry-confirmed synthetic flat such as 80304. Reject 47361 because its 3/8" nap bridges the saw valleys.

Large uninterrupted rough fence/elevation, coating chemistry confirmed compatible, crew with an 18" system and back-brush worker: choose 47369 for the open field; hand obstacles to 47365. Reject the 18" if access, obstacles, or crew pacing prevent immediate back-brushing.

Broad oil/alkyd siding or trim: choose the natural/oil-rated 4" lane by grade — 80055 utility, 80354 general-purpose identity with grade conflict flagged, 80454 stiffer Premier production, or 47383 for Hyde’s oil-rated broad lay-off with fill composition unresolved. Reject 80005/80304 as this guide’s waterborne polyester lane.

If line control matters more than reservoir, 80763/80764 LS are the true neighbors. A guide that endorsed any of them for latex or oil without that fill check would fail the buyer test.

Two boxes labeled 80733 and 80768: do not invent a performance upgrade. Buy on verified availability/condition after filament is established, not a fabricated “better” claim.

History — why the roller took the field and the brush kept the edge

For most of architectural-paint history, the brush did everything: carried paint, worked it into wood, drew the trim line, and laid off the film. Natural hog bristle was the oil-paint standard because its tapered, flagged fibers held and released a slow coating well. The roller is remarkably young by comparison.

The roller never eliminated the brush because the two tools do different physics. A roller transfers a large, even reservoir across a field; a brush turns corners, cuts a line, reaches under laps, and works coating into grain and checks. Exterior siding preserves that division in its clearest form: roller lays, brush keys and finishes. The job fails when either tool is asked to impersonate the other.

Tools this guide links back to: roller field — 47361 / 47362 / 47365 / 47369 / 99304 · broad flat/back-brush — 47383 / 80005 / 80055 / 80304 / 80354 / 80454 · long exterior cut-in geometry, filament-gated — 80733 / 80734 / 80763 / 80764 / 80768. Every member is linked at exact SKU grain above; none is a blanket endorsement. The graph runs product → job through the contributing product/line application records and job → product through this guide’s exact relative links.