Formatting entry in printed TOC for a PDF I added?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Afternoon all.

I have a TOC that is used to generate a PDF output.

I need to add a couple of pre-existing PDFs as appendices, so I put the files in the Content folder, and dragged the PDF into the Flare TOC, then generated my output.

It all worked very well EXCEPT the entry in the generated TOC displays as if the entry was a Heading 1. I'd actually prefer not to have the title of the PDF included in the TOC at all, or at very least no higher than as if it were Heading 3, but I can't see anywhere in the TOC that I can edit it. I even tried removing the "Title" line in the TOC (opened as text) but all that did was give me a blank entry in the printed TOC with the page number still sitting there.

Any useful suggestions? I can only find instructions on stitching PDFs in the Flare help (which is effectively what I've done) but nothing about how to make the title appear in the printed TOC.

[Pepe]

Hi,
Not sure if it will help but "For print-based output the TOC labels are based on actual headings within topics."
Is it possible your existing pdf TOC page use a h1 tag?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Hi,
Not sure if it will help but "For print-based output the TOC labels are based on actual headings within topics."
Is it possible your existing pdf TOC page use a h1 tag?

I thought of that and checked, but neither of the PDFs were created in Flare, and don't have any headings at all. The heading that appears as if it were a Heading 1 is the text from the "Title" line in the Flare TOC. (I know this, because after building it the first time I edited the TOC and changed the title, and the entry in the generated TOC changed accordingly, just is formatted at the wrong level.) Nice try though, we were thinking along the same lines.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Any further suggestions before I rip the last of my hair out?

[smajors]

I'm having the same issue. Does anyone know of a fix? I don't have a Flare page for my title page because I'm using a PDF for a cover page. So, I added the PDF as an external resource to my Flare project and added that to the TOC as my title page.

[ChoccieMuffin]

I got a confirmation from Tech Support that there is no way to do what I wanted, but they've added a feature request. (Don't hold your breath though!)

[smajors]

Bummer! Thanks for the update!

[ChoccieMuffin]

@smajors, would it be practical for you to merge the two PDFs after they've been built, by copying the page from your cover PDF into your Flare-generated PDF? Or would that not fit in your processes? (I know it's not something I'd be able to do here, unless someone knows some way of automating it!)

[smajors]

Yes. Actually, I was able to get an image of the cover and insert that into a page layout, so it ended up working out ok. However, I have another external PDF I need in my manual but am going to end up adding the PDF separately in Adobe to my Flare PDF output. I have section divider pages that start a new section of the manual and those titles act as H1s in the TOC, so I have some H1 styles that act as H2s so they're indented under the section H1s in the TOC. The external PDFs are always H1s and can't be changed as an H2 so I'm going to have to do a work around and do it separately like you suggested.