MadCap Software Forums

I have two product variants, each with a PDF and a WebHelp file. One product is our own fully-functioning product, and the other is an rebranded subset of functionality that is bundled for distribution with some third party software. The subset product needs significantly different branding, page ...

Since all else has failed, have you got another target you can build to give Flare a bit of a break from generating PDFs?

Sounds silly I know, but I have a PDF target and a WebHelp target that use the same master TOC. If/when the PDF fails to build with an internal error and waiting for a few ...

Well done for solving that. I do like puzzles, and get a lot of satisfaction in solving them, but 12 hour solutions aren't helpful when you are up against it. Even I can do without those.

Thanks for letting us know what you found. As you say, one to remember for another time.

It sounds like you ...

Some more questions. As the previous respondent said, it's hard to say without knowing more, but you could try some of the below to try to isolate the problem. WARNING! Some of what follows involves making incremental changes to your project files to try to isolate the problem. Before you start ...

Hi there,

I've almost done my WebHelp skin, but there is just one think I can't seem to set. Am I missing something?

tiny search.png

How can I increase the depth of the search box and the font size of the search text in the search accordian? It's tiny!

Styles > Control > Searchbox seems to ...

I'm not sure I understand quite what you want to do, so I'll offer a couple of suggestions. Sorry if I've misunderstood your question and I'm telling you stuff you already know.

If the "numbering" you refer to is for things like heading numbers that need numbers in the printed output, but not for ...

I'm probably teaching grandmother to suck eggs here (and clutching at straws, to mix my metaphors) , but have you by any chance changed the name or location of your Perforce workspace? The 260 character limit applies to the whole file name, including the complete folder path, which will include ...

I encounter this issue when trying to build a Word target for one of our projects. I can build the PDF target of the same source/project fine. Even stranger, I was able to build the same Word target without errors a month ago. The project hasn't moved. The output directory hasn't changed. I'm ...

If you can't move the whole project, you can set a different output folder for the target (to something shorter); as it seems to be the path length of the output files that is the problem.

Be very careful if you set a different output path in the target from the default output path that Flare ...

This is a bit of an aside, but . . .

I noticed that Flare seems to make the computer slower and slower during the day - as if it keeps grabbing RAM and won't release it again until the computer is rebooted. Your admin might be able to find out ...

MAdCap support have admitted that there are is ...

It looks like you are doing something more complicated than I tried just now.You're not trying to set your fancy style on the h1 heading, but to some other variable that you're defined specially for the chapter heading? Is that correct? If so, sorry, but it's more than I've managed to do so far ...

What do your style definitions for the heading style and for the span style look like?

I've just managed to do what I think you are looking for. The level 1 heading (just the chapter number, without "Chapter" in the text is usually orange, like the lower level headings. Just for the sake of it, I ...

Thanks ladies.

So that's a keystroke that *does* do the same as in Word. I have found so many instances where the Word shortcut key doesn't work in Flare that I don't even think to try the Word equivalent now.

Happy weekend everyone. My day is nearly done in the UK.

This is probably a really silly question (or so it seems to me, anyway).

How can I add a <br /> to my topic content? The only way I can find to do it is to actually hack the XML in a text editor. I can't believe that's the correct way, and I'm sure I'm missing something.

I have a niggling feeling ...

In case anyone is interested, the answer from MadCap support is that mc-heading-level doesn't work as expected for GlossaryPageHeading style, and they have raised a bug.

Is there any chance that the cover page and everything you need for it is already in your page layout? In that case, you don't need a cover page topic in your project.

What happens if you remove the IQxel topic from your project TOC? Do you still get one title page?

If you look in the XML that Flare generates for the topic, it actually hard-codes the text of the xref in the .htm file, as it would appear in your primary target. So, for example, in my primary target, xrefs are

See section 1.1.1 "Section Name"

and that actually appears in the .htm file ...

you cannot easily produce, say, PDF output and webhelp output from the same TOC

I've done this without too many problems for Webhelp and PDF. I also have three product variants, Product A, which contains almost everything, product B which contains a subset of the functionality, and Product C ...

It is worth making sure that you are running .NET 4, not the previous one (3.5, I think). Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features and check the version of Microsoft .NET Framework that you have installed.

This is an even longer shot - there is absolutely no chance that the file (or the folder ...

Could you explain what you mean by a "Span" approach? What style(s) did you apply to what parts of the heading, and what do the styles look like in the stylesheet?

<Your Flare Project Folder>\Project\Skins. :-)

By default, icons and images will be in <Your Flare Project Folder>\Content\Resources\Images. I've got no idea why Flare thinks that images (and stylesheets and page layouts) are part of your "Content", but skins are just part of your "Project". Anyway ...

Not sure I've understood all your questions exactly, so I'm sorry if this is either repeating what you already know, or isn't telling you enough. If so, do say, and I'll try to do better . . . :)

For skins, for some reason, the icons actually get embedded in the skin file in all their binary glory ...

I get this occasionally, two or three times a week, I'd say, so not as frequently as you, but for web targets sometimes too. I got it this afternoon. I usually build a different target, then go back the first one, that usually then works for me. That did the trick when it happened this afternoon.

I'm only a few months ahead of you. I'm a sole author, so I've had to set it all up on my own. It has been a scary ride but one of my reasons for moving to Flare from Robohelp and Word was the need to single source content from three similar products, each of which needed PDF and Webhelp output and ...

Yep, while trying to update one image, I noticed that I had ended up with two images too. I think I may have hacked the one I wasn't using out of the skin file in the end, using a text editor.

Any idea why this is so convoluted? Is there a good reason for embedding them directly in the skin source ...