Cross references as hyperlinks in Word printed output

[Sara MD]

I would like all xrefs in my project to display and functions as hyperlinks in my Word output. (I can't tell from Flare online help whether xrefs are supposed to appear as hyperlinks in print, but they do appear as hyperlinks when I preview my printed output.) All of my xrefs appear as just regular text in Word. I've created (and used) quite a few different xref styles with no problem. I thought maybe the solution to this was some setting in the xref style, but if it is, I can't find the relevant property that controls how an xref functions in print. Any ideas from those more exerienced in Flare than I? Thanks.

[david.moss]

This is a response to an old post, but may help anyway.

You can get around xrefs not outputting properly in word by using hyperlinks instead of xrefs. This seems to work just fine when outputting to word 2007 and then converting to PDF. It works fine for topics I mean, but a problem here seems to be if you want to hyperlink to a bookmark inside a topic.

For example, we want to hyperlink to a table (which we've bookmarked) in the introduction from another chapter. Problem there is that it hyperlinks to an outside file instead of jumping you to a place inside the word output. Adobe pops a window up that says allow or block access to this link. If you allow it, it opens up the link in your web browser and then says the page is not viewable.

Like I said, hyperlinking topics works just fine. you jump around the output without a problem. The concern though us hyperlinking to bookmarks.

Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks.

[KevinDAmery]

The one gotcha with hyperlinks is there's no way to have it behave differently in print-to-paper situations. Obviously, in a PDF having references function as links makes sense, but if you're actually going the dead tree route, you really need something along the lines of "see Whatever on page X". Cross references can be given print styles that automatically add the "see" and "on page #" elements, whereas hyperlinks cannot.

But if you don't need to worry about the whole tree-killer fandango, then hyperlinks are a viable option.

[McCarthy]

This true. But the way around that is by using a hyperlink for the topic and a cross ref for the page number.

I know that that's a messy way to work, but it works.

So, for example, you add a hyperlink to the topic. Then you add a space and add a crossref to that topic that has the format "on page {page}". In the output, you get a clickable link on the topic and the page number as a field.

I think this works. It's not the best way to work of course, but I can't find a better way. Anybody found something better?

Thanks.

[royj]

I guess my solution is just as messy. I create a hyperlink to the target, and then inside the hyperlink, I create the cross-reference. That way, I get the "See Foo on page X" of a cross-reference, and the whole thing works as a hyperlink.

[tana]

Hello. I am struggling mightily with getting my WebHelp output to be simply a hypertext link and the printed output to show the title and then "on page x."

With the two way you guys gave above, does this mean that in your online Help the page number reference is still visisble? I tried following your process, and my WebHelp does show the page number. Not what I want. I tried applying a print-only condition tag tothe cross-reference.. that didnt work either.

Any help would be very appreciated. Also, if all of my WebHelp topics have hyperlinks, not cross-references (I imported from RoboHelp) does this mean I will have to find every single hyperlink in my 400+ topics and insert a cross reference for each??

thanks, I relaly need some help here.

tana

[McCarthy]

Hi tana,

As far as I know, the 'on page xx' for print only is available for cross references, not hyperlinks. Is there a reason why you would like to use hyperlinks and not cross references? Cross references give you a bit more flexibility I think.

[tana]

Hi, McCarthy, thanks so much for your reply. Sadly, the only reason I "want" hyperlinks is because they already exist throughout my 400+ Help topics, which I am trying to single-source to Frame and then PDF.

So it looks like I will be going through each and every Help topic and inserting class-"xref" beside the "a href=" in any places that I want to have a page # display in the output. Sigh. (Though, actually, I am fine with leaving just the hyperlinks to pop-up glossary terms, etc.)

And I have gotten the xrefs to work on my test page, and I am super grateful for your suggestion in this thread on how to do that.

However, I dont want the page number to show up in the onlin Help topics. So I tried setting a condition on the xref portion, and designated Print Only, but the page number still shows up in the WebHelp output, along wiht the correctly hyper-linked name of the topic. I just want the hyperlinked topic name in the WebHelp output, and in the Frame, I want the topic name AND the page number.

maybe my current sticking point is really conditional tags, not xref'ing!

thanks for your help with this!
tana

[KevinDAmery]

In the definition for XRefs you can choose a class - these classes can, among other things, define that XRefs behave differently in print than in online output. So you can set them up to act as hyperlinks in online output, but to remove the underline and add a page number reference in print.

Since you will likely be going through and adding XRefs anyway (oh joy oh bliss... ) you might as well replace the hrefs with xrefs completely.

[tana]

Thanks Kevin, your help is much appreciated.

In the style sheet, in the Medium:print mode, I set the psuedo classes under the a.xref style (focus, hover, link, visited) to exactly how I want them (black font, no decoration). Then I double-checked that in the Medium:default mode, it is blue and underlined.

In the topic, I commented out the old "a href=" completely, and inserted an xref, which resulted in this markup:

Code: Select all

For more information about each task, see <!--<a href="get_started_overview.htm">Overview of Setup Tasks</a>--><a href="get_started_overview.htm" target="" title="" alt="" MadCap:conditions="Default_OLD.PrintOnly,Primary.PrintOnly" class="MCXref" xrefformat="{title} on page {page}.">Getting Started Overview on page 1.</a></p> 

I also set the mc-format to: {title} on page {page}. (I will include the "See" in my previous text.)

HOWEVER, in the WebHelp output, I am still seeing the page number. WHAH, boo-hoo!!! I really dont want a pge number to appear in my online Help system.

That is my only remaining issue with this xref stuff, i think. (And thanks to you all so much for the info about hyperlinks verus xrefs; saved me a lot of frusrtation!)

Thanks you so much!
tana

An unpleasant thouht that just popped into my head: if for whatever reason this source had to be used in a diff HATT, how would the Flare XREFs be handled? Part of me likes the old fashioned, universally known "a href=". ;-|

[KevinDAmery]

Ok, sounds like you're almost there. Now what you need to do is go into the stylesheet and modify the Unclassified > mc-format parameters. The key here is that you need to modify them in BOTH the Default AND the Print media. Set the Print to include the page number reference and the Default to not include it. This will allow you to have page number references for PDF, Word, or FrameMaker outputs while not having it in help outputs.

[tana]

Good morning! I did indeed do that yesterday, sorry I failed to mention it. For the a.xref, on Print Medium, I set the mc-format property to {title} on page {page}.

For a.xref in the Default Medium I left the mc-format at {not set}.

Should I set it to something else?

Thanks, I look forward to your reply and encouragement.
tana

[KevinDAmery]

For the default medium, set it to {title}. That should do it.

[tana]

Yeah and yippee for Halloween, it finally works, thanks so much. I didn't write back earlier because something rally strange kept happening... whenever I would change the mc-format setting on the Print medium, Flare seemed to change it on the Default Medium, to whatever I had defined on Print Medium. It was probably user error.

Now my test cross-reference works like a charm, thanks to you all, and I will start going through the rest of the 400 Help topics to replace hyperlinks with xrefs.

Thanks again!
tana