Exclude Topic from PDF

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Tonea Morrow
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Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

Hello,

I have one TOC, but my next page is a quick jump page. It shows graphics of the software's interface so the viewer can click on the item they want help with and quickly jump to that page. This makes sense in an online help file, but may not seem sensible in a PDF. I still include a quick jump page in the PDF because these are often emailed to the reader by a manager or friend and then read on the computer instead of being printed out. The quick jump page for the PDF is formatted differently than the one for the online. Ergo, I have two topics (both appear as Quik Help within H&M, but one is actually name Quick Jump so they can be separate files). The online quick jump has build options set to be included in the build for anything except print and PDF (those have no check marks next to them). The PDF version is set to appear only on PDF and Print.

My online version appears within my PDF, giving me two Quick Help sections in my PDF. My PDF version is not appearing in my online version, so that part works.

Any suggestions?

Tonea Morrow
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Tim Green
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tonea,

What you need to know here is that build options use a simple OR logic. This means that if a topic is tagged with multiple build options, only ONE of those options needs to be true for the topic to be included. If you want one topic to appear in PDF only and the other one to appear in the other formats only, it's simple: You tag the first one only with PDF and the other one only with CHM,HTML (for CHM and WebHelp).

As far as I can see, that is what you want to achieve here:
My online version appears within my PDF, giving me two Quick Help sections in my PDF. My PDF version is not appearing in my online version, so that part works.
So what you want to do here is tag the online version with only those formats where you want it to appear. This should be done in the table of contents: Right-click on the topic entry in the TOC and then in the Include in Builds context menu activate only the check boxes for your online formats, making sure that PDF is not selected. Similarly, only the PDF option should be selected for the PDF version.

You can also do this with conditional text tags within topics, when the topic itself is being included everywhere but you want different content on some levels. Here too, the build tags themselves have a simple OR logic. However, you can achieve an AND logic by nesting tags. This is usually used for combining output format and user-defined tags, or multiple user-defined tags. For example, this will only include the content if the output format is PDF and the user-defined tag DEMO is activated:

[IF PDF>[IF DEMO>content goes here<END]<END]

By contrast, if you include both tags in a single condition, the content will be included if either the format is PDF or the DEMO condition is activated or if both are true:

[IF PDF,DEMO>content goes here<END]
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tonea Morrow
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:20 pm

Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

Please look at these graphics. They show the settings that I already had set. As far as I can tell, they don't share anything that would cause the 2nd one to print in my PDFs.
Quick Help (PDF, Print).png
Quick Help (Other).png
Based on your comment about nested references causing AND effects, I went through the 2nd Quick help and made sure there were no IF/Then statements. I also looked at the toggles. I have some in-line text toggles and some drop-down toggles. I had them set to auto-expand if PDF/Print, but went ahead and unselected those options just to try something. No change. I still have my 2nd Quick Help appearing in my PDF.

What am I missing? :roll:

Tonea Morrow
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Tim Green
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

I still have my 2nd Quick Help appearing in my PDF.
Have a look in the compiler report. My guess is that you will see a message saying that the topic was force-included because there is a link to it somewhere else, to prevent a dead link. See this topic in the help for information on how to deal with this:

https://helpandmanual.com/help/index.ht ... dlinks.htm
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tonea Morrow
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Joined: Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:20 pm

Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

Okay,
Compiler Messages 10-06-2017.png
Nothing of note to explain my double Quick Help pages.

What next? :frustration:

Tonea
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Tonea Morrow
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

By the way,

I went ahead and checked the referrers. Neither Quick Help page referrs to any Quick Help page.

However, I started to look through the other topics in the set. I will finish investigating that when I get back from lunch.

Tonea Morrow
Tonea Morrow
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

I checked and could not find a single page that calls to the quick help pages. The graphics on the Quick Help pages are rather ubiquitous, so I just have them set as active links anytime they are displayed in other pages. No one needs to go back to the quick jump page. Even in the PDF and the CHM, the organization tree is on the left, so they can select the Quick Jump page from there (at the top), if they wanted to go back to it. It would be redundant to put a link to it in the individual pages.

Due dilligence done. :frustration:

Tonea Morrow
Tonea Morrow
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

I added a "Writer's Comment" page that is set to never print on any builds. I just put comments in there about what I did and why so a year from now it will make sense since I'm close to wrapping this manual up. It does not appear in the PDF.

I started messing with the build options to figure out which ones do and do not cause Writer's Comments to be included in the PDF build. If Writer's Comments is set to appear in Web Help, then it appears in the PDF.

So, for now, I will make sure web help is turned off on Quick Help topics while I make the PDF. Then I can turn it back on.

Tonea Morrow
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Tim Green
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tonea,

I think I need to have a look at this to figure out what's going on here. Please mail me your project with a brief note describing how to reproduce the issue and I'll check it for you. Pack it in a zip and send it to support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @).
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Tonea,

Make sure you haven't accidentally got Webhelp ticked when publishing PDF:
hm_pdf.png
regards,

Martin.
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Tonea Morrow
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Tonea Morrow »

I have had bigger fish to fry since my last post, so I only just now saw Martin Wynne's post. Martin, FANTASTIC JOB! Yep. That was the problem. I feel stupid and would rather not admit my mistake :oops: , but a thank you was earned and "Thank You" is given. :D

Tonea
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Exclude Topic from PDF

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

You're welcome Tonea.

We all make silly mistakes. Guess how I knew that might be the problem. :)

Martin.
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