Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

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Dave Gehman
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Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

I'm having trouble publishing a selected group of topics as Word output. I even closed everything down and rebooted before a second try with the same result.

After I select the topics I want to output and go to File > Publish > Word, select the template [Word-Template-Clean-Style-US], and publish, the output includes topics not selected. Same result with different H+M standard templates. Yes, I have clicked on "Publish selected TOC items only."

In the image below, a number of selected topics at the top have scrolled off. The Word docx output includes not only the selected topics, but also all the material up to but not including Concepts -- that is, the Word docx also includes the NON-selected Units 2-7 and 9-18 (both of the 18s :shock: ):
Image
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Tim Green
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Re: Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

What does the compiler report say? Are there any topics listed as being included to prevent dead links for example? Also, is there only one TOC in this project or do you have multiple TOCs? And if you have multiple TOCs, which one are you using to publish the selected topics with -- the primary TOC (first) or one of the secondary TOCs?
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
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Re: Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Tim Green wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:52 am Hi Dave,

What does the compiler report say?
Very minimal:
"Compiler Messages

"Files to distribute
"You must deploy the following files:

"C:(rest of local file location)

"[Open and explore output folder]"

In any case, I'm was trying to obtain a subset of topics. Yes, these topics are fairly heavily laced with internal links. The subset is for testing and specific content review.
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Tim Green
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Re: Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

OK, that crosses those things off. What about multiple TOCs? Are you using those, and if so which TOC are you publishing from, the primary one or one of the secondary TOCs?
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Alexander Halser
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Re: Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Hi Dave,

Do the selected topics have one common ancestor node? The MS Word export strictly adheres to the TOC, because there is no other way to structure the content in Word. So if you do a multi-selection in different sub-chapters, it needs one common ancestor node to tie them together. And that may include other sub-chapters that you did not explicitly select.

Example: when you select the chapter "Unit 8" (only the chapter heading, not the topics in this chapter), you will still get everything contained under "Unit 8".
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
Dave Gehman
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Re: Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Tim Green wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:33 am OK, that crosses those things off. What about multiple TOCs?
Nope, single TOC.
Alexander Halser wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:42 am Do the selected topics have one common ancestor node? The MS Word export strictly adheres to the TOC, because there is no other way to structure the content in Word.
This is probably what's happening -- it's all under the first (conceptual) "volume". self-guided training, of our 4-"volume" help schema ("Concepts" at the bottom of my image is the second).

I'll experiment and report.

Dave
Last edited by Dave Gehman on Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dave Gehman
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Re: Publish selected topics, Word output oddity

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

That was it. I de-selected the parent (ancestor) to the self-guided section and now have the document I want.

Thanks!
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