Heading for list of topics

[Dave1975]

Hi there,

In my project (imported from FM) I am breaking up large pieces of information in smaller topics. Output = PDF

Problem: when I start breaking up a large section, it usually starts with a H2 and directly underneath it a number of H3's each with their own paragraph of text. After breaking up at H3 level I end up with e.g. 5 topics that start with an H3 heading and one topic that is left only with an H2 with no further content. On one hand I don't want to end up with a large number of "empty" topics with just an H1 or H2. On the other hand I need to keep them in my TOC to make sure the PDF output is structured correctly, meaning the H2 followed with the H3's with their paragraphs.

What I tried was to unlink the TOC entry from the topic only containing the H2 and then select "inject headings for empty book entries in TOC". In the PDF output the heading indeed appears at the correct location, only it is labeled as a H3 instead of an H2. Moving the book entry to another level in the TOC doesn't seem to help.

I know that of course I can simply add the H2 to the first topic of that section just above the H3, but then if the order of the topics starting with an H3 needs to change, I need to move the H2 again to another topic.

Are there more efficient ways of doing this?

thanks

David

[Madeline]

I'm very new to Flare but I understood it was the heading level applied that controlled it's display in the Print TOC - not whether it is it's own topic or level of indentation in the Flare TOC. That is, a heading 3 displays as a heading 3 in the Print TOC regardless of whether it's the start of a new topic or included in another topic. Are headings below other headings in topics not displaying in your Print TOC?

[Dave1975]

Hi Madeline,

Yes they are displayed, that is not the issue.

Maybe I didn't explain well, it is kind of hard to understand if you don't see the project in front of you.

The big chunck of data that I'm breaking into pieces (topics) has a H2 as title. The data underneath the H2 consistens of paragraphs with H3's as title. I created topics from each piece of information that has a H3. Of course in the print output I still need the initial H2 for structure reasons. However, as all the info underneath has already been transferred to seperate topics, I end up with a topic that only contains that H2. I rather not include the H2 on top of the first H3 topic as then I cannot shuffle the H3 topics around without having to replace that H2 again.

Does this make sense?

grtz

David

[Rene Severens]

Hi,

How is your TOC structured?

If you position the topics inside the TOC at the same level as the heading, and use the (tab Advanced) options to use TOC heading level and unlinked books then you can create all topics with a H1. The heading level in the output will be determined during generation of the output. Having an unlinked book to organize the TOC structure is common when doing this.
The big advantage of this way is that each topic can be positioned in any other TOC, even at a different (heading)-level and still will get the correct heading level.
Even if created a topic that contains a H1 and a H2, the generated output will show the correct heading level, meaning: if you put this topic inside a topic (book) at level1 in the TOC, the topic(book) will show a H1, and the topic will show H2 and H3, as these headings will be updated by Flare based on the set options on the Advanced tab.

You wrote "I know that of course I can simply add the H2 to the first topic of that section just above the H3, but then if the order of the topics starting with an H3 needs to change, I need to move the H2 again to another topic."
It looks to me that in this case you have the H2 and H3 topics positioned at the same level in the TOC, like this:

H1 (Book)
H2 (topic)
H3 (topic)
H3 (topic)
H3 (topic)

Change this to:

H1 (Book)
H2 (Book)
H3 (topic)
H3 (topic)
H3 (topic)

Or even into:

H1 (Book)
H2 (Book)
H3 (topic)
H3 (topic)
H3 (book)
H4 (topic)
H4 (topic)

When you move a topic around in this structure Flare will always generate the correct heading in the output based on the level the topic is positioned in the TOC.

Greetings,
Rene Severens