diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 379a92463d..3bbef16bdd 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ Imports:
     purrr (>= 1.0.0),
     ragg,
     rlang (>= 1.1.0),
-    rmarkdown (>= 1.1.9007),
+    rmarkdown (>= 2.26.2),
     tibble,
     whisker,
     withr (>= 2.4.3),
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ Suggests:
     htmlwidgets,
     knitr,
     lifecycle,
+    magick,
     methods,
     openssl,
     pkgload (>= 1.0.2),
@@ -71,3 +72,5 @@ Encoding: UTF-8
 Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
 RoxygenNote: 7.3.1
 SystemRequirements: pandoc
+Remotes:  
+    rstudio/rmarkdown
diff --git a/R/rmarkdown.R b/R/rmarkdown.R
index d8641d986b..ef72379adf 100644
--- a/R/rmarkdown.R
+++ b/R/rmarkdown.R
@@ -108,7 +108,10 @@ rmarkdown_render_with_seed <- function(..., seed = NULL) {
     #   envir$.Random.seed <- .GlobalEnv$.Random.seed
     # }
   }
- 
+  # Ensure paths from output are not made relative to input
+  # https://github.com/yihui/knitr/issues/2171
+  options(knitr.graphics.rel_path = FALSE)
+
   rmarkdown::render(envir = globalenv(), ...)
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/testthat/_snaps/build-articles.md b/tests/testthat/_snaps/build-articles.md
index 63d48d8f8b..473bcbdb90 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/_snaps/build-articles.md
+++ b/tests/testthat/_snaps/build-articles.md
@@ -1,20 +1,3 @@
-# links to man/figures are automatically relocated
-
-    Code
-      copy_figures(pkg)
-    Message
-      Copying man/figures/kitten.jpg to reference/figures/kitten.jpg
-
----
-
-    Code
-      build_articles(pkg, lazy = FALSE)
-    Message
-      -- Building articles -----------------------------------------------------------
-      Writing `articles/index.html`
-      Reading vignettes/kitten.Rmd
-      Writing `articles/kitten.html`
-
 # warns about missing images
 
     Code
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/.gitignore b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/.gitignore
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/.gitignore
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/.gitignore
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/DESCRIPTION b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/DESCRIPTION
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/DESCRIPTION
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/DESCRIPTION
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/README.md b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/README.md
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/README.md
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/README.md
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/_pkgdown.yml b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/_pkgdown.yml
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/_pkgdown.yml
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/_pkgdown.yml
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/man-figures.Rproj b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/man-figures.Rproj
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/man-figures.Rproj
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/man-figures.Rproj
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/man/figures/kitten.jpg b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/man/figures/kitten.jpg
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/man/figures/kitten.jpg
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/man/figures/kitten.jpg
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/man/kitten.Rd b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/man/kitten.Rd
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/man/kitten.Rd
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/man/kitten.Rd
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/.gitignore b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/.gitignore
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/.gitignore
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/.gitignore
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/another-kitten.jpg b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/another-kitten.jpg
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/another-kitten.jpg
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/another-kitten.jpg
diff --git a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/kitten.Rmd b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/kitten.Rmd
similarity index 70%
rename from tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/kitten.Rmd
rename to tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/kitten.Rmd
index 0481c299b6..332ecf94bb 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/assets/man-figures/vignettes/kitten.Rmd
+++ b/tests/testthat/assets/articles-images/vignettes/kitten.Rmd
@@ -20,10 +20,24 @@ knitr::opts_chunk$set(
 knitr::include_graphics("../man/figures/kitten.jpg")
 ```
 
+``` {r}
+knitr::include_graphics("another-kitten.jpg")
+```
+
 ## rmarkdown
 
 ![](../man/figures/kitten.jpg)
 
-## Another kitten
-
 ![](another-kitten.jpg)
+
+## External package
+
+```{r magick}
+magick::image_read("another-kitten.jpg")
+```
+
+## Plot
+
+```{r plot}
+plot(1:3)
+```
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-build-articles.R b/tests/testthat/test-build-articles.R
index 99f9c57a11..a09134e259 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-build-articles.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-build-articles.R
@@ -5,21 +5,28 @@ test_that("can recognise intro variants", {
   expect_true(article_is_intro("articles/pack-age", "pack.age"))
 })
 
-test_that("links to man/figures are automatically relocated", {
+test_that("image links relative to output", {
   # weird path differences that I don't have the energy to dig into
   skip_on_cran()
-  pkg <- local_pkgdown_site(test_path("assets/man-figures"))
+  pkg <- local_pkgdown_site(test_path("assets/articles-images"))
 
-  expect_snapshot(copy_figures(pkg))
-  expect_snapshot(build_articles(pkg, lazy = FALSE))
+  suppressMessages(copy_figures(pkg))
+  suppressMessages(build_article("kitten", pkg))
 
   html <- xml2::read_html(path(pkg$dst_path, "articles", "kitten.html"))
   src <- xpath_attr(html, "//img", "src")
 
   expect_equal(src, c(
+    # knitr::include_graphics()
     "../reference/figures/kitten.jpg",
+    "another-kitten.jpg",
+    # rmarkdown image 
     "../reference/figures/kitten.jpg",
-    "another-kitten.jpg"
+    "another-kitten.jpg",
+    # magick::image_read()
+    "kitten_files/figure-html/magick-1.png",
+    # figure
+    "kitten_files/figure-html/plot-1.jpg"
   ))
 
   # And files aren't copied
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-package.R b/tests/testthat/test-package.R
index d2f4528a49..ce3dd158ad 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-package.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-package.R
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ test_that("package_vignettes() sorts articles alphabetically by file name", {
 })
 
 test_that("override works correctly for as_pkgdown", {
-  pkgdown <- as_pkgdown("assets/man-figures")
+  pkgdown <- as_pkgdown(test_path("assets/articles-images"))
   expected_list <- list(figures = list(dev = "jpeg", fig.ext = "jpg", fig.width = 3, fig.asp = 1))
   expect_equal(pkgdown$meta, expected_list)
   modified_pkgdown <- as_pkgdown(pkgdown, override = list(figures = list(dev = "png")))
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-preview.R b/tests/testthat/test-preview.R
index 35ee01f933..74e261285d 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-preview.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-preview.R
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 test_that("checks its inputs", {
-  pkg <- local_pkgdown_site(test_path("assets/man-figures"))
+  pkg <- local_pkgdown_site(test_path("assets/articles-images"))
 
   expect_snapshot(error = TRUE, {
     preview_site(pkg, path = 1)