Start on new page - topic or chapter attribute

[brunos]

It would be very useful to be able to set a "Start on new page" attribute for a topic, or chapter, under Change Item.

Regards,
Bruno

[TomHenehan]

After tearing my own hair over page-breaking at new topics, I discovered a good easy solution, built into Print Manual Designer. I posted this somewhere else, in another one of these forums, a day or two ago, but I'll repeat myself here because it seems to apply:

Open the appropriate .MNL file and select the "Topics" page. Pull down the "File" menu and select "Page Settings." Then select the second tab "This Section Only," from the popup window. The bottom half of the window allows you to specify Page Break for each of five bands, i.e., each of five levels of headings; the default setting for each level is "None," but you can select either "New Page" or "New Odd Page" for any individual band. I went for "New Page" at Top Level Heading and Level 2 Heading; someone else might prefer "New Odd Page" for top level and "New Page" for all levels 2 through 5, or whatever...

[brunos]

It's my fault - I didn't express my wish precisely! At the risk to get a frog's kiss, while longing to be kissed by a princess (no offense, Tom)! So I'm not supposed to complain. But I still hope for the princess...

As it seems to be a "copy & paste" day, I'll copy & paste my comments to Tom's reply, posted in the "Tips and Trick" forum.

quote:
--------------
(....) The MNL default page break is well described in the H&M manual (...) Let me show you a typical example where it doesnt' work (or at least, I'm not capable to make it work). For the sake of this explanation, chapter levels are shown as A,B,C. The ones, set in MNL as new page, are marked as (* new page in MNL).

A1
...B1 (*new page in MNL)
......C1 (I want this chapter to continue on the same page, and so it is.)
........topic
........topic
......C2 (I want this chapter to start onto a new page - how to do it, Tom?)
........topic
........topic
......C3 (I want this chapter to continue on the same page - and so it is)
........topic
........topic
...B2 (*new page in MNL)
.....C1
...B3 (new page in MNL)
.....and so on....

(....)
------------------------
unquote (entire post is in Tips & Tricks)

By the way, I can't believe I'm the only technical writer and H&M user who needs such feature! Manual page breaks (in the middle of text, or on the bottom of it) are so common in any software, as a steering wheel in cars; I wonder how do you, dear writers, manage to live without it? I can't, I'm suffering...! I'm using H&M professionaly since 1997, starting with version 1.4h, so my pain is sort of a looong pain.

Thus, I'm keen to learn how other people solve the above case. There must be a trick. Because, there's also another sad possibility - perhaps I don't see what everyone else see; perhaps I'm just a dummy bloke. I'm not too scared to know it (hopefully).

Enlight me, please.

Regards,
Bruno

[TomHenehan]

I didn't see Brunos' original reply under "Tips & Tricks" -- I guess I forgot to check the box to request notification of a reply that time, although I *did* make such a request this time.

You're certainly right; the way it is now, there's no way to selectively start some topics (of a given level) on new pages and not others. And, I agree that there should be a way to effectively insert a <next page> command at the end or at the top of a topic, allowing one to do so.

However, I was glad to find the existing method, and I'm willing to live with *every* top-level and level-2 topic starting on a new page. Since the <new page> command works perfectly well *within* a topic (where I occasionally need to use it), I have *almost* all the page-break controls I could wish for, and am willing to live with the situation -- for now.

No kisses, frogly or otherwise -- sorry, not my style...