Single Sourcing for Page Layouts

This forum is for Single-Sourcing your Flare content to multiple outputs.
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jlockerby
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:05 pm

Single Sourcing for Page Layouts

Post by jlockerby »

My project is set up to export separate PDFs for each topic in my target. I've had a request to include the title of each topic in the header rather than on the topic, so that it repeats at the top of each page. (This is completely manageable in this particular project since it's an unusual situation - I'm trying to use Flare to manage the schedule for a conference, so I'll have only 8 topics total for this target.)

My question is, what is the best way to single source this so that I don't need to create a separate page layout for each of those 8 topics to include the correct title for each topic? If I'm understanding things correctly, variables will not work since the variable needs to be the same for all topics within the target. I tried setting up conditions and snippet conditions (each of those topics is already set up to include/exclude content based on snippets to show the correct schedule information), but it doesn't seem to be applying to the page layout content, only to the content within the topic itself. So, instead of updating as intended, to display only "Track 1" on the topic that is set to display only Track 1 content, it displays "Track 1 Track 2 Track 3," and so on - no conditions are being used.

It looks like a similar question was asked a few years ago (viewtopic.php?f=75&t=16944&hilit=conditions+page+layout), and the consensus was that for master pages you SHOULD be able to use conditions, but it wasn't working. Anyone know if this has been fixed, if this is different for master pages vs. page layouts, or if there is a workaround besides building 8 different master pages to include the correct title on each one?

Thank you for any ideas!!
Psider
Propellus Maximus
Posts: 811
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Single Sourcing for Page Layouts

Post by Psider »

Could you use Heading or Running Head variables? They sound like they are designed for what you are wanting to do.

http://docs.madcapsoftware.com/FlareV12 ... sGuide.pdf
tpmtpm56
Propeller Head
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2017 4:46 am
Location: Paris, France

Re: Single Sourcing for Page Layouts

Post by tpmtpm56 »

I have a similar situation, if I understand yours correctly.
I wanted different footers in my PDFs, and I was successful using variables. My situation is simpler, but it worked.
We have two guides that are similar: one for external (customer) use, one for internal use. So I created a single project for both guides. Some topics apply to the external guide, some topics apply to the internal guide, and some apply to both guides. I then created two separate TOCs for each guide type. I have a single page layout for normal pages (i.e. pages that are not chapter first pages, contents, index, etc.), with a footer that uses my variable 'GuideTitle'.
So I created two different PDF targets, and manually edited the Variables category in the respective PDF Target Editor accordingly – i.e. I manually entered 'User Guide' and 'Reference Guide' in the 'Variables' category > 'Definition' field of the respective PDF Target Editor.
It works. I hope this is of some help!
But as long as I'm here, my question is this: Is this considered the correct/best practices/most efficient way to achieve this? It seems clunky and ad hoc. Or is it?
I originally thought that specific page layouts would do the trick, whose application would be based on conditions. Or is this completely off the mark?
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