MadCap Software Forums

Do be aware that it's not possible to have "see step 6" or "if you don't need to do that, skip to step 8" kind of thing in Flare, because the step numbers aren't something you can stick a x-ref to...
Maybe Flare can't do that, but it's certainly something that can be done. It'd have to be done ...

Here is the original code:

<ol>
<li>Go to <span class="UI_interaction">Admin > Users</span>.</li>
<li>Click the name of a user.</li>
<li>In the lower right, click the <span class="UI_interaction">Delete [username] entirely from...</span> link.</li>
<li>Click <span class="UI_interaction">OK ...

MadCap's content strategy is "more is better." And "hide stuff behind eye candy that you have to take extra steps to view."

When I see documentation that explains what all the menu items and buttons do and is organized in that fashion, I assume it was written by an engineer, not anyone trained in ...

I get this "warning" ("PDF Writer: Failed to convert to PDF font: Arial Unicode MS. Using default font: Helvetica.") every time I build a PDF. I see it explicitly when I build from a topic file, and I discovered it is indeed an error when I build a full target PDF. A search for this error found a ...

I don't want them to be hidden. I want them excised from DITA output because the DITA DTDs do not allow headings. Basically, your DITA content is supposed to be chunked so that each file is the content under any one heading or subheading.

But Flare's DITA output is broken, so it's unusable anyway ...

That's not a bug - the default xref is configured to return {paratext} which is the text of the first block level element that it finds at the link destination. If you link to a file, that will typically be the h1 element except that you have removed the h1 element.

You can configure the xref ...

Clean XHTML targets don't include the TOC or any navigation control.

So I'm assuming you've inserted a TOC proxy in a topic, which is really intended for print outputs, rather than web/HTML outputs.
(I'd class Clean XHTML as a HTML output rather than printed.)

Not sure what the best solution is ...

I find the most interesting bugs.

DITA topics do not contain headings or sub-headings. So in my failed attempt to produce DITA output, I conditionalized my h1 blocks in my topics to be excluded. And in an attempt to find an alternative to DITA output, I've been trying to see if any other output ...

(I'm posting this here because the forum index says "This forum is for all Flare issues related to PDF, eBook, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker, XPS, and XHTML book targets. " for the subtitle, although I don't see how XHTML fits into "printed.")

Because the DITA output is broken, I'm experimenting ...

Well that's interesting. Moving the output location outside of the default in the project folder also seems to mean Flare does not add that [my name] sub-folder in the Output folder.

Annoyingly, I can't get Git to ignore the Output folder when I have it listed (AFAIK correctly) in .gitignore. Of course I don't want/need output in the source files repo, so I had the idea of moving the output folder outside the repo folder. This worked--except for the Temporary folder. Flare not ...

Hah! the HTML spec defines 6 heading levels: https://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/headings.html

I'd be willing to bet that because Flare is almost certainly validating against the XHTML DTD, that it doesn't "know" what to do if a selector is defined past that.

But it also means that if you use TOC ...

My approach (which I totally credit to Scott DeLoach) would be to have a global project, several product-level child projects, and one grand build project that pulls everything together. Scott discussed this in a webinar last year, and I think it a brilliant solution. The recorded webinar, in which ...

So adding mc-heading-level definitions to the heading selectors in the CSS rather than the TOC selectors got me the rest of the headings in the TOC. But I'm still having one annoying issue. Here is the start of one topic:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www ...

If I understand you, you've set the mc-heading-level attribute to 0 for some of the p.TOC# selectors, yes? Those are the wrong selectors to use that attribute in. Use it in the heading selectors. So, say, if you want something that ends up as an h5 (once the "TOC depth" operation is complete) not ...

In a PDF output with the "Use TOC depth for heading levels" setting selected, TOC entries that should be at level 5 are instead styled as if they are at level 2. I also have at least 1 topic that is not appearing in the TOC at all, although the content is in the PDF.

I did not have the mc-heading ...

I found what seems to be a semi-easy workaround: Separate variables files. I created a set of global variables, and then a set for each product. I changed the variable references in one topic and the result was what I wanted. It's gong to be a bit of work to change them all, and I am not sure I want ...

My goal here is to create a "help center," that is, a help "home page" with links to help for all of our products. (As well as PDFs, videos, and other resources). I have my content repository set up thusly:

The main folder contains a few common content files, as well as the "home" page
Sub-folders ...

I'm using fairly standard topic structure, and Flare adds tags to the source file as I'd expect: h1, h2, h3, etc.

I have a target for DITA output that we're sharing with a partner. in the output files, all of the heading tags are being converted to p tags. This is a BIG problem.

For example ...

Simple to do (once you know how, of course!)

Select the paragraph blocks, then go to the Home ribbon and locate and click the Group button. It's in the Paragraph group, farthest button to the right. You'll get a window asking you what kind of group you want, and you can select your div style.

HTH ...

Background:

We have a partner who we give branded documentation source files to. They said they wanted "DITA-based XML," as that is their authoring and publishing methodology. Which is one reason we settled on Flare, because it purports to output DITA.

They are saying the DITA output I've been ...

In your target on the Glossary tab, is the check box for your glossary file selected? I assume yes, but am trying to cover all the bases.
Yup. I went excruciatingly through all the settings to make sure the ones that the documentation said needed to be set to make a glossary work were set. I get a ...

No, no, and the folder name is "GlossaryTopics" (no space; my bad on the incorrect folder naming in the OP).

I defined a glossary and added a bunch of terms. I'm using an external file for each term rather than an inline definition so I can keep formatting, add links, etc.

When I build the HTML5 output, the glossary terms are marked, but they do not pop up. That is, nothng happens when I hover. They are ...

I've made 2 attempts to create a glossary, primarily for print output (but I imagine they'll work as pop-ups when we start publishing online as well). In two attempts, configured differently, I get a Glossary topic at the end of my PDF--and zero glossary terms.

I'm doing all of my glossary terms as ...