Duplicate Topics in PDF Output

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:32 pm

I'm on Flare v 11.1.

For my online output, I link the Chapter with the first topic in that chapter, in order to create a nice breadcrumb link in the online output.

For example, in my Getting Started chapter, the first topic is "Installing SecureAnywhere." I link the Getting Started chapter in the TOC to Installing SecureAnywhere. If I don't link it, a little yellow flag shows up. Then I link Installing SecureAnywhere to itself. If I don't, a little yellow flag shows up.

However, that creates a duplicate of that topic in the PDF output, and Installing SecureAnywhere shows up twice, once with a Print style header, and once with an Online style header - and both of these are what show up in the PDF output.

I am unable to upgrade to Flare 13, or most current version. Is there a solution to my problem? I'm thinking I'm not the only person with the need to create online and PDF outputs who doesn't want topics duplicating. What do other people do? How do other people structure their TOCs? Do you create a separate but identical TOC? Thank you in advance.

devans · Post by **devans** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:49 pm

When you have two headings in the TOC that are linked to the same HTML file, you need to mark the second one as Exclude From Print or it will be included twice in the print output (but only once in online output - not sure why). I have set up an Exclude From Print condition specifically for that purpose and marked it green so I can always see these topics in my TOC. There is one warning though; you can't do this if you have subheadings under the second TOC entry or those topics will also be excluded. I don't know if there's a way around this other than to separate out the second TOC entry into its own HTML file. Someone else might have a better way.

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:25 am

I'm not sure what you mean by having two headings in the TOC that are linked the the same HTML file. I have Chapters, and I have topics below those chapters. The Chapter is linked to the first topic in that Chapter, so I can create breadcrumbs for the online output.

Also, I don't want to exclude any of the topics from the print output, so I'm not sure why I would set as Exclude From Print.

The way you're describing it, I would need to have two of every topic, and have one be set for Print and the other for Online. Or maybe I should have two TOCs, one for each output?

Okay, I tried that, and got the same result. I'm probably not setting some setting in the appropriate way, though the online Help guide doesn't indicate what those settings are and what they should be set to.

Post by **Nita Beck** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:45 am

Christina, please post a screenshot of what the TOC file looks like and another screenshot of the duplication you're seeing in the generated table of contents in the PDF output. Thx.

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:28 pm

I'm attaching an image that is of how the PDF turns out - the first topic in a chapter duplicates the Chapter itself, and then doesn't reflect the true chapter name.

The other image is of how the TOC Editor looks, which is what I think you're asking for; it shows the way I created it. For example, Getting Started is the Chapter title, and there is no topic associated with it. For the online output, I linked it to the first topic, which is Installing SecureAnywhere - this creates the breadcrumb. However, for the PDF output, it creates duplicate topics.

Thank you in advance for any pointers you might have.

ChoccieMuffin · Post by **ChoccieMuffin** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:58 am

Just clutching at straws here.

In your TOC right-click Getting Started and on the menu click Open Link. Look at the Text Editor. It is possible that you have a line near the top of the topic that says "<head><title>Installing SecureAnywhere</title>". If this is the case, delete the text between the <title></title> tags and rebuild. If that works, do the same for your other topics that are misbehaving.

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:20 pm

I am in the text editor and it's not set up the way you describe. That is, I have the following:

<body>
<h1>
<MadCap:keyword term="installing SecureAnywhere;SecureAnywhere:installing" />Installing SecureAnywhere</h1>
<p>SecureAnywhere is available in several editions, described in the table below. If you aren't certain which edition you purchased, do one of the following to determine which edition you have:</p>

So it looks like <h1> is the proper way to tag a heading one.

Thanks for trying.
I'm thinking it might be that the Chapter (the Book) is linked to the first topic in that chapter, and thus shows up twice?

Post by **doc_guy** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:48 pm

Let me see if I understand what you are saying:

1. You intentionally added the topic to the TOC twice. This makes breadcrumbs work in online output, so that the folder/book has a topic linked to it.
2. You don't like the consequence of having a topic twice in your product. In the Online output, you can live with it, but in the print output, you have the topic appear twice, which is irritating, unprofessional, and (you hope) unnecessary.

If these two assumptions are correct, read on. If they are not correct, please correct me so I can give better advice.

The way I get around this is to create a topic at the folder/book level that is essentially a chapter overview topic. It's a pretty simple topic that is basically like this:

That gives me a nice chapter beginning, and doesn't require duplication of any content in my online or print outputs.

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:58 pm

You are essentially correct! While I didn't add the topic twice, the fact that I am linking the book to the first topic does create a breadcrumb trail that duplicates - the breadcrumb trail points to the chapter and to the first topic, and shows the same exact breadcrumb trail. I've attached an image that shows what I mean. The Chapter/Book is linked to the Overview topic, and the Overview topic is linked to the Overview topic. Am I overdoing it?

And then, yes! I'm getting duplicate topics in the print version!

I'm going to try your method and will report back!

I hate to lose the breadcrumb trail because it seemed a nifty way to orient the user as to where they were in the document. I'm going to do more research on how this might work better.

Post by **doc_guy** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:12 pm

Oh. Yes. While you haven't "added" the topic twice, you've done essentially the same thing by linking to the topic twice. Once in the book/folder title and once when you actually inserted the topic into the TOC. So, from the TOC perspective, the topic *is* in the TOC two times. Just with different names. My solution will help, because now the folder/book object is pointing to a totally different (new) topic so the topic is only linked to once in the TOC.

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:14 pm

Thank you, this helps massively, now that I understand how to make it work for print!

My question is then - because I link the Chapter to the topic and the topic to the topic, and the breadcrumb duplicates, is that something that folks just put up with? Like you said, online it is live-withable, but is there any way to get rid of it duplicating?

Post by **doc_guy** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:20 pm

I think that most people don't have the topic in the TOC twice. They point the book/folder container to the overview topic, and then they don't put the Overview topic in the TOC again.

Here is an example from my TOC:

The book "Managing Certificate Notifications" is a new chapter. It points to an overview topic. The first child, "About certificate notification and logging" is the first sub-chapter topic. So the overview topic is only in the TOC in one location. It doesn't need to be in there twice.

Does that make sense?

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:24 pm

No, it doesn't make sense, because I only have topics in there once, also. I've got Getting Started as a Chapter, and Installing SecureAnywhere is the first subtopic, and also the overview, of sorts.

When I link, if I don't link the Chapter to the topic, and then also link the topic to the topic, the breadcrumb doesn't show up properly.

Could you tell me how you link your Chapters to your topics? Maybe that'd help.....

devans · Post by **devans** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:48 pm

Sorry Christina but you need to do what I suggested above. You need to create a condition that excludes the second TOC link to the topic for print only. What happens is Flare goes through the TOC and because you have linked two entries to the same topic, it calls that topic twice. If you set up the second TOC entry with an Exclude condition, the TOC entry will still appear in your print table of contents but Flare will only call the topic content once and you won't get the duplication.

Post by **doc_guy** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:02 pm

From what I can tell, you really *do* have it in there twice.

In your screen shot, you have a chapter title called "WSA PC User Guide". When you look at the Link properties, it points to "WebrootSecureAnywherePCUSerGuideOverview.htm".

The next topic in your TOC has the title of "Webroot SecureAnywhere PC User Guide." If you look at the Link properties, does it also point to "WebrootSecureAnywherePCUSerGuideOverview.htm"? If so, then the topic is in the TOC in two places. It just has different names.

It looks like, based on the print output, that your "Getting Started" chapter overview points to the "Installing SecureAnwhere" topic. You then have the "Installing SecureAnywhere" topic as the next topic in the TOC. (I base this on the page numbers. The first topic in the chapter is 10 pages (from page 3 to 12). The second topic in the chapter is also 10 pages (from page 13 to 22).

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:10 pm

Yes, you are right, the way you explain it to me makes sense. The topic will show up twice -

I'm doing that for the Breadcrumb in the online output. But I don't want duplicate topics in the PDF output.

I now have two topics and they are each set with a condition tag for PDF or Online. However, I'm getting both the PDF and the Online topic in the PDF output.

Any tips?

Post by **doc_guy** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:14 pm

What is wrong with the breadcrums if the topic only appears once? Given my example TOC from my image, above, here are the breadcumbs for a topic in that chapter:

What do you want it to do that it isn't doing?

devans · Post by **devans** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:14 pm

I think you need to specifically exclude the Online content from your PDF output, i.e. your PDF condition needs to Exclude Online topics.

Post by **doc_guy** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:20 pm

Devans,

Why do you think the topic needs to be in there twice? I really think it doesn't need to be in there twice. No conditions necessary if the topic is only there once.

devans · Post by **devans** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:36 pm

I've been looking for the section in the Flare manuals about this because I know I found it when I had the same problem.

In my case, I can have two headings in one topic. I want them both to appear in the TOC. However, the first heading doesn't have any text under it so I don't want it in a topic on its own in the online output.

Something like this:

1. GETTING STARTED
1.1. INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE
Paragraph text

Both headings in the TOC point to the same topic file because there's no point having a topic file that only has the heading "1. GETTING STARTED" in it with no text. If I build the print output, I get two copies of that topic. So I set the second entry in the TOC to be excluded from print and then it only appears once in the print output. Online output is not affected.

I know that I could get around this by adding text under the first heading and making it a topic file on its own, but I don't always want to do that.

devans · Post by **devans** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:06 pm

I found another topic in this forum that talks about this problem. It's an old one but still applicable:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6360

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