Two Topics have same content

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Ed Dressel
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Two Topics have same content

Unread post by Ed Dressel »

This just happened for the second time... I am not sure how I did it. I thought I inserted a snippet but the two pages are copies of each other. If I make changes to either page, it is copied to the other page.

I read your help file and didn't see any notes on this.

How do I break the link between the two pages?

Ed Dressel
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Tim Green
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Re: Two Topics have same content

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Ed,

When this happens there isn't actually a "link" between the pages because there are not two pages. There is only one. What has happened is that you have created two TOC entries for the same topic. You will be able to see this in the Topic Options tab. If you look there you will see that they both have the same topic ID. The TOC is really just a list of links pointing to topic pages and it's quite possible for different entries to point to the same page (although this will make the Previous/Next navigation in WebHelp work a little strangely).

To solve this just delete one of the two TOC entries. Select it, press DELETE and in the dialog displayed uncheck the option for also deleting the referred topic file. Then create a new topic in the same location with its own unique ID.

To insert a snippet you need to click in the topic and select the Snippet tool in the Write tab, in the Insert Object group. Snippets are always inserted inside existing topics, not in the TOC. This also allows you to have multiple snippets in a single topic and to insert other content above and below them.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Ed Dressel
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Re: Two Topics have same content

Unread post by Ed Dressel »

Tim:

Thank you for your quick response.

My topic has had multiple child topics, so deleting the topic is not as quick as I would want. It would be nice if there was a quicker way to fix this.

Ed Dressel
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Tim Green
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Re: Two Topics have same content

Unread post by Tim Green »

Ed Dressel wrote: Mon Oct 26, 2020 6:43 pm My topic has had multiple child topics, so deleting the topic is not as quick as I would want. It would be nice if there was a quicker way to fix this.
That's still easy to do: Create the new topic before deleting the old one. Then drag the child topics from the old position to the new one. Then delete the topic that now has no child topics. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Ed Dressel
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Re: Two Topics have same content

Unread post by Ed Dressel »

TIm:

Thanks--but having 10+ child-topics on a topic still makes this a bit of work, and then being sure they are lined up in the correct order...it just slows the process down.

I never had this problem before and I have had it several times recently.

Ed Dressel
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Tim Green
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Re: Two Topics have same content

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Ed,
I never had this problem before and I have had it several times recently.
The only explanation would be that you used the Add Topic option instead of the Snippet tool (which must always be used inside an existing topic). That would then create a new TOC reference to an existing topic if you enter the ID of an existing topic. However, when you do this you will also see a dialog asking you if you want to create a new entry for an existing topic. :?
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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