Page layout issue

[Lala]

Hi everyone

I am a relative newbie to using page layouts from scratch, so it would be great if I could get some advice.

I have a single project for, at this stage, 2 manuals.

There is a TOC for each manual, and a Target for each manual, and also a page layout for each manual as the footer differs. Obviously all the topics for both manuals are within the "contents" folder, but are separated by two main folders, let's say "Manual 1" and "Manual 2".

When I build the targets to PDF all is well in the world and the correct page layout is used for each target.

However, when I am just viewing the individual topics in Flare, it doesn't matter what Manual I am viewing, they both display the footer for Manual 1 page layout.

It works when it is built so it's not a major issue, but if one day in the future someone else works on these manuals, they may not realise it works in the output.

Is there a way that each topic displays the correct page layout in the editor?

Hopefully this makes sense.

TIA

[Lala]

Sorry to be clear, its not "no matter which manual I am viewing", its more no matter which topic I am viewing, they all display just the one page layout.

I am not even sure why it has picked the one it has...I don't recall linking to the page layout anywhere except in each target.

[atomdocs]

There are a couple of view settings that you can configure for your topic as you work on it; they are in the topic toolbar just below the topic's tab: Layout, Medium, and Page Layout. You can use these to switch the view of the topic between online and print. When you select your print layout, you can also select a page layout. This is all just for displaying the topic in the editor, it doesn't affect how your targets are set up or how your output builds. However, for future writers, these settings are not "sticky".

[Lala]

Ahh yes, thank you. I did find those.

It's a shame they don't "stick"

[atomdocs]

I think this is because of the "single-source-multiple-output" power of Flare. The MadCap tech writer explains it this way in the Help: "The reason Flare does not automatically show a topic in the appropriate page type is because it won't assign page types to content until you generate the output." Flare doesn't store page layout or page selection info for each topic, so it opts for defaults when displaying a topic in the editor, but provides these handy switches for us to configure it ourselves.

[alex]

If the only difference between page layouts is text, you could use a single page layout with variables where the text needs to be different.

You can have separate targets and TOCs for each manual and specify the variables to use at the target level.
You would then assign the page layout(s) in the TOC.
The preview will pick up the variables you specify in the primary target.

Although some people like to use one target and multiple TOCs, I find that having a target for each TOC can come in handy when you have a lot of manuals to manage and don't want to just keep switching out TOCs and variables each time you build a target.

[Nita Beck]

Although some people like to use one target and multiple TOCs, I find that having a target for each TOC can come in handy when you have a lot of manuals to manage and don't want to just keep switching out TOCs and variables each time you build a target.

Alex, I completely agree. In fact, I consider your approach a best practice.

[ChoccieMuffin]

I think (but could be wrong) that the layout and medium used when you open a topic come from whichever target is set as Master (green arrow beside it in the Project Organizer pane).

As for having different page layouts because of different products, is the difference to do with the product name, for example? If so, you may be able to use variables in your footer and then just add the variable to the footer rather than hard-coded text. That way it will be clearer for future TAs that the footer changes in the output depending on the variable used.