Publish task manager nearly does what I want...

[Greg Smith]

For many years I have been bugging you to let me generate PDFs twice, once with all the links highlighted (for human browsing) and once without (for printed output where the underlines make no sense and make it difficult to read). Currently I generate compiled HTML for program help and the human browsing file using the Publish Task, then I have to manually print the version without the underlines, which involves selecting an output folder. As I have several versions of my project, this manual step is error prone as I must select which output file I want (not the last one that was used; it is very easy to accidentally overwrite the wrong file).

So, today I noticed that I can 'Add new Task Action' and this lets me set a 'New Publish Definition' for PDF output and this has a check box for 'highlight links' and lets me send the output to a different file. Perfect... I thought. Those great folks at Help&Manual have listened and want to make my day. So I added a new action and I now have one 'Publish as PDF' with highlight and one 'New Publish Definition' without.

BUT... they both generate identical output...
Also, (and of minor importance), why is there no option to edit the task title from 'New Publish Definition' to something more useful?

A couple of years back one of you very kindly send me a load of HTML that you said would do what I wanted, but it was so intimidating I did not follow this up.

You appear to have all the mechanisms in place to do exactly what I need interactively, so pretty please, would it be possible to get the last step of actually allowing us to have 'print in black with no underlines for links' as a publish option and to allow me to automate one more step of generating a software release?

[Tim Green]

Hi Greg,

It's true that the "Highlight Hotspots in PDF" option in the Publishing Task Manager doesn't appear to be activating, and we will get onto that. However, it isn't the function you think it is, unfortunately. If you try it in the direct Publish screen you'll see that it doesn't activate the underlines. It's a debugging function that surrounds all clickable areas, including every entry in the TOC and index, with a thick colored outline so that you can see where it is (green, by default).

I'm afraid that what you want here really isn't possible with the template or the task manager, because the underlines in the PDF are a project setting that can only be changed in the project. So you do still have to switch it between publishes. I'm entering this to the official Wish List for consideration, if it is possible to add it to the Task Manager as an option.

A couple of years back one of you very kindly send me a load of HTML that you said would do what I wanted, but it was so intimidating I did not follow this up.

That wouldn't help you for PDF, because PDF doesn't understand HTML at all. Two completely different worlds, as different as English and Chinese.

[Greg Smith]

Thanks for the reply... I kinda expected that the checkbox was not what I was after, but a drowning man clutches at straws. Thanks for considering this.