An absolute path refers to the very specific location, including the domain name.

An absolute path starts out with a fixed location, e.g. C:\Users\Public\Documents\Ecrion\XF Designer 2010\Samples\XML Samples\Template Samples\cdcatalog.xml.

A relative path refers to a location that is relative to a current directory.

Relative paths make use of two special symbols, a dot (.) and a double-dot (..), which translate into the current directory and the parent directory. Double-dots are used for moving up in the hierarchy. A single dot represents the current directory itself.

E.g.  ..\..\..\Users\Public\Documents\Ecrion\XF Designer 2010\Samples\XML Samples\Template Samples\cdcatalog.xml.

NOTES:

A relative path cannot span disk drives. For example, if your current directory is D:, you cannot use relative paths to navigate to any directory on E: