Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

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Carsten Grubb
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Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Carsten Grubb »

Hi,

My large project happens to occasionally have a depth of more than 6 TOC levels in the help system.

I know that H&M say that more than 6 levels should be avoided.

However, in the PDF I just use un-numbered headings for levels 6+.

Manual Template Designer Online Help says that higher levels than 6 will show as Heading 6.

In my case, they disappear.

Am I doing something wrong?

Can it be helped?

Best regards
Carsten Grubb
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Carsten,

There are only 6 levels of heading definitions in the print manual templates, both for the TOC and for the topic headings. This means that no headings for levels below 6 can be generated. The topics will be printed, but they will not have headings.

The only way to get around this would be to include headings inside the topic body of topics on level 7 and lower. You could enclose these headings in conditional text tags (Insert > Conditional Text) so that they will only be included in the PDF output. However, you should be aware that the deeper your topics go, the fewer people will read them... 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Alexander Rodnikov
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Alexander Rodnikov »

Hi, Tim. I have the same problem.
It's strange that headers 7+ are missing. It would be better if they are printed (may be, without number), because it is very hard to understand where new topic begins. I have no opportunity to insert variables in topics for pdf build manually, because I have more then 100 projects, 10 different builds and I publish them in html and, sometimes, in pdf formats.
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Tim Green
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Alexander,

I can only repeat that only six TOC levels are supported in PDF. If you add more levels the topics will not have entries in the PDF TOC, and your users will probably not read those topics anyway, because very few users go down further than three levels. 8)
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Alexander Rodnikov
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Alexander Rodnikov »

Hi Tim.

I can see these topics in the tree, these projects are merged in the main one. The tree of topics is correct.
The problem is that the title is missed in the result document. The structure of our help is convenient, because on the upper levels general functions are described, on the lower levels concrete functions are described. May be in future you'll make an option like "Show headers of all levels in the text". It will be usefull.
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Tim Green
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Alexander,
May be in future you'll make an option like "Show headers of all levels in the text". It will be usefull.
Sorry, we add lots of requests but we will not be adding this. If your project has more then four levels it is already too many. More than six is nor really usable, so it will not be supported. :)
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Van Swofford
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Van Swofford »

...If your project has more then four levels it is already too many. More than six is nor really usable...
Say it enough times and maybe it will become true. Some technical subjects are complex enough that they don't lend themselves to being flattened like you suggest. My experience has been that users seek out the information they are looking for and read it. They couldn't care less how many levels of headings there may be. That's just silly to think that they would. :roll:
"Half of what I say is meaningless..." -- John Lennon
"Your job is to figure out which half" -- Van Swofford
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Tim Green
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Van,

OK, let's say it's under consideration but not yet very high priority... :)
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Tim Green wrote:OK, let's say it's under consideration but not yet very high priority... :)
For H&M4 ?
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Tim Green
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Re: Headings 7+ disappear in PDF

Unread post by Tim Green »

Martin Wynne wrote:For H&M4 ?
Didn't notice that -- I tend to just work my way through the "unread posts" list... 8) However, just to confirm: New features are never added to previous versions of the program, only to current or future versions.
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