No printed document for merged projects?

[pe_thiemann]

Sorry for bothering you with my Word problems, but they are numerous...
We have modularized our help project in different master and slave projects and need printed documents for those portions. The first generation in a master project renders an eror message stating, that printed docs are not supported for merged projects. Is this really true????

[SteveS]

Hi Petra,

Sorry, but my understanding is you can't create printed output from a merged project.

You can add a request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. I've been meaning to lodge one and you'vee jogged my memory.

[pe_thiemann]

Hi Steve,
thank you for your answer, althought i don't want to hear it. I have read the error message Flare produced but i didn't want to believe it. That is why i posted this question, hoping someone could provide a trick...
Do you know by chance, why it is not possible to create a printed doc out of a merged project? Are there technical limitations or is it just not implemented?

[SteveS]

Unfortunately I don't know why.

I guess there must be some technical limitation, given that it is such an obvious thing to do - particularly as you can merge the online flavours of help. It would be great to have though

[vinnie99]

I ran into the same thing today. I called MadCap and was told that Flare won't generate a PDF that includes all the content from merged projects (and the compiler error messages bear this out).

This is disappointing news to say the least. Apparently I'm faced with the prospect of either 1) importing all my content from the child projects into the parent parent (which defeats the purpose of having modularity), or 2) compiling each separate project to Word, then combining then in one doc, then hoping I can somehow make a consistent TOC and Index.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with this?

[SteveS]

Hi Vinnie,

Welcome to the forums.

Unfortunately you've hit the nail on the head - import it all to Flare and build, or build all your projects to word and combine in Word.

I don't know the layout of your projects, but given Word's (sometimes) erratic behaviour, I'd look to see if you can do it in Flare first.

You might find it easier to create a new Flare project just for the printed output and drag the merged topics into the new project. You can have 2 instances of Flare open and drag from one t'other to copy the topics across, or you can do it in Windows Explorer.

Someone else might have found a better way to handle "shared" topics, but that's the way I've been doing it to use modular topics shared across multiple projects.

HTH

[ccardimon]

Hi Petra,

Sorry, but my understanding is you can't create printed output from a merged project.

You can add a request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. I've been meaning to lodge one and you'vee jogged my memory.

Was a feature request ever submitted for this?

[RamonS]

I don't know, but you can submit one as well. MadCap has this weird policy that apparently even the most blatant flaw won't get fixed until the magic number X of bug reports is reached. At least that is what I conclude from the communications from MadCap about bug submissions. So basically, if you haven't submitted a report already go ahead and submit a report even when a dozen others already did that as well.

[ccardimon]

Okay. How should I phrase it?

"Please allow printed documentation for merged projects."

Will that do it and will they know what I'm talking about?

[RamonS]

What I sometimes do is post the URL for the relevent forums discussion. I am under the impression that support reviews the bug submissions and transfers them to an internal bug tracking system (aka human filtering). In that case the supporter can then attach the request to an issue that may already exist in the system. In general, provide as much detail as possible.

[ccardimon]

Done.