Topic footer - is it for print layout only?

[stephgl]

Happy Monday everyone!

If I want to have a footer at the bottom of all my topics for the Help version number and copyright info, what is the best way to do this for WebHelp output? Is it to create a snippet and paste it into each topic as the last paragraph?

Thanks much,
-Steph

[LTinker68]

Easiest way is to use a masterpage. You type the copyright and other info beneath the bodyProxy in the masterpage and it'll appear in every topic in the output. If you don't want it on all the pages -- say you don't want it on the welcome page -- then you create two masterpages. There is an extra couple of steps you need to do if you have two or more masterpages; see this KB article -- http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#FMP1001F.

[stephgl]

Yay for master pages! Thank you Lisa!
-Steph

[stephgl]

So far, so good! Now, I have found MadCap | breadcrumbsProxy for formatting the breadcrumb text. However, does MadCap | pageFooter have anything to do with a WebHelp master page? Or, do I need to make regular paragraph and div classes to format the text in this Master Page footer?

Thanks much,
-Steph

[SteveS]

Hi Steph,

You can use a masterpage for online flavours of help. It will use standard styles much the same as any topic.

A handy way to control format for print help is to use tables for each of the footers - first page, left page, and right page because they have things like page number location for different facing pages.

For online help you will (probably) only need 1 style of footer so you might not need to use a table, although tables can make layout easier (but aren't good cascading style sheet practice). I like to think of a masterpage as a frame the topic gets dispalyed in - any changes to your stylesheet will show up on the surround to any topic using that masterpage.

HTH

[stephgl]

Okay, now I have two master pages for my WebHelp output, one for most pages and a separate one without breadcrumbs for the home page, applied with a html class for that purpose.

The footer for both these master pages has our version number and copyright date. I put that info in a snippet, and put that snippet in the master pages, and then applied a div class to set the formatting there.

So, I think in the future we can just update the version and date info in one place in that snippet, without having to worry about formatting or modifying the master pages.

Is this method going to cause any problems I haven't anticipated?

Thanks much,
-Steph

[KevinDAmery]

Sounds similar to what I've been doing for two years now. Works without a hitch.

[SteveS]

Is this method going to cause any problems I haven't anticipated?

Your boss will think you are mega organised...
...until he finds out how easy it is

[stephgl]

Thanks Kevin & Steve, it sounds like I'm on the right track!
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