Cross-references lead to wrong instance of a topic

[KarenW]

I have a user guide that contains information for two different users (User A and User B). In some cases, information for these two users are identical, so I have put the same topic into the TOC two times. There are times when I must make a cross-reference to one of these twice-used topics. When I make a cross-reference within User A's part of the book, I want it to go to the topic in User A's part of the book. The same for User B. I cannot, however, seem to control which of the topics the cross-reference points to. In other words, When I make a cross-reference within User B's part of the book, the cross-reference often leads to the topic in User A's part of the book, which is a no-no. The user may end up with the right information, but she also ends up in the wrong part of the book. Does anyone know how I can control which instance of a twice-used topic a cross reference leads to?

[shgadd]

Hi Karen,

I think you may need to reconsider how you are re-using the identical information. As far as I am aware, cross references are not designed to work with topics being repeated within one TOC.

Perhaps instead you could have two topics (Topic A and Topic B), one for each User, and put the shared information within snippets in these topics? This way the content stays consistent and you can reference the topic relevant to each User.

[SteveS]

Hi Karen,

Welcome to the forums.

I would use conditional tags for user A and User B, and create seperate targets for each. If a cross reference is going to break for either version you can apply conditional tags to the XRef.

HTH

[Daniel Lemke]

Hi Karen,

What happened with this issue? I am running into the same thing now. I have a document that is cumulative, so Version 6.4.0.1 includes all of the content from 6.4.0.0. My manual TOC, which is made up of XREF's, links to the topics for the 6.4.0.0 content instead of the new 6.4.0.1 content. I will have to add some bookmarks or something to handle this for now, but would love a better solution if you came up with one.

Also, did you enter a feature request with Flare, and if so, can I have the number so I can get added to the notification list?