PDF output only renders 10-12 (out of 150) pages

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vaikanen
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:41 am

PDF output only renders 10-12 (out of 150) pages

Post by vaikanen »

I've been banging my head on this problem and I can't figure it out. Using a PDF output/target, Flare 2018 only spits out about the first 10 pages -- and then just stops for no reason I can discern.

[*]I was trying to output a PDF. I created a PDF target and I have some conditions in use (Print Only and a Product Name tag to mark topics as print only and specific to a particular product).

[*]The Target is set to Include the Print Only and Product Name conditionals, and exclude everything else.

[*]All the topics are marked Print Only and Product Name.

[*]I built a separate "print only" TOC and set everything in it to Print Only and Product Name.

[*]I've tried every possible permutation and no matter what, Flare spits out about 10 pages and that's all.

Any ideas? What am I missing? If I output to Word, the entire document (about 150 pages) is output. But PDF just isn't working and I'm stumped. I'm a pretty practiced hand with Flare, but I haven't used it for PDF output very often. That said, I don't remember ever having this much trouble with it.

Thanks in advance.
ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: PDF output only renders 10-12 (out of 150) pages

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

I suspect it's your conditions that are messing you about, so a good place to start is there. The starting point in Flare's help on conditions is here: http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare201 ... n-Tags.htm.

Do you have any content that has more than one condition on it, for example "Product B" and "Print Only" or "Product A" and "screen only", or "Product A" and "Product C"? If so, it's possible you'll need to use the Advanced bit of the conditions tab on the target, which I ALWAYS find confusing so you're not alone. The Flare help topic about associating conditions with targets is here: http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare201 ... argets.htm.

You say you've built a separate "print only" TOC. That might not be necessary, as long as the TARGET you're using has the correct conditions set.

1. As a starting point, in your PDF target, clear all the Include and Exclude check boxes and generate the PDF. This should give you the whole thing with everything in it, and more than 150 pages. This is just to check that everything you want (plus everything you don't want!) generates to a PDF.
2. Don't select any INCLUDE conditions, just the EXCLUDE conditions for things you don't want. So, for example, if you're generating Product B's Print Only target, select the EXCLUDE check box on "Product A", "Product C" and "Screen only" and don't touch any of the INCLUDE check boxes. Any topics that are conditioned as "Product B" and "Screen Only" are excluded, because you've told Flare to exclude Screen Only. This might be as far as you need to go... but I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if you need to go further. If that doesn't work, move onto step 3.
3. If you have some content that is conditioned for "Product A" and "Product B", then step 2 will exclude that content from your output, because you told it to. So now work through your conditions list and INCLUDE the conditions you want. But be aware of the following warning from the Flare help:

"Warning: If you do not select any check boxes at all, all of the tags will automatically be included. If you include only some tags and exclude others, any remaining tags without check marks for either Include or Exclude will automatically be included. However, if you select Include for any of the tags (even just one) and do not select Exclude for any tags, all of the other tags that do not have Include check marks will automatically be excluded. If you want to be safe and always know that the correct tags are included or excluded, you can make sure that all of the tags have check marks with either Include or Exclude."

There's a section a bit further down that second help link that describes using the Advanced editor, and it's worded much better than I could summarise here, so if the steps above haven't helped enough, do read that.

Good luck, and come back if you're still stuck, perhaps with a more detailed description of what your tags are and how you've used them.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
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