Page Layout not being assigned to topic

[pelikano]

I am baffled by this.

My project outputs to WebHelp and PDF. I created Page Layouts for the print version a few months ago and it was a painless exercise. Chapter, TOC, Index, etc. Very impressed by the ease and control. Felt a lot like good old FrameMaker, too.

Now I want to create front and back covers to display our cover art, and so did the following:

• created a page layout called CoverPDF
• created a topic called FrontCover and added it to the Print TOC, right at the top
• in the Print TOC opened the topic's Properties and enabled Start a new chapter document
• selected CoverPDF from the drop-down
• for Page Type selected Title

Now here's what throws me: when I open the FrontCover topic, the page layout it displays is my Chapter.flpgl. Open the topic's page layout in the Page Layout Editor, and sure enough I get Chapter.flpgl.

So the topic is ignoring the page layout assignment I gave it.

Did I miss some basic step somewhere?

[lacastle]

is it ignoring the page layout when you make a PDF?

[pelikano]

Yes!

The PDF output uses the Chapter.flpgl.

[pelikano]

Hey, here's a new clue.

Playing around further with this project, and generating the PDF once again, got this Flare error in Build Progress dialog's Messages tab (for the first time ever):

...
Creating chapters,,,
Compiler (Internal error): Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

And the process aborts.

Now I half expected something like this right from the start of this problem. The fact the page layout assignment is ignored suggests an internal problem down in the guts of the project files. I am still new to Flare, so have no idea how it links all this stuff beneath the hood.

Can anyone comment on this?

[pelikano]

I'm beginning to feel like Columbo....

One more thing: when I remove the "cover" topic from the TOC and regenerate the PDF output, there is no error--things are normal again.

[lacastle]

Do you have a title layout in the CoverPDF page layout? maybe you set the TOC to reference Title when it actually should be First, or something like that. That error message tends to come when you've referenced something that isn't available to use.

have you tried just adding a Title layout to an existing page layout and referencing that in the TOC?

[pelikano]

Do you have a title layout in the CoverPDF page layout? maybe you set the TOC to reference Title when it actually should be First, or something like that. That error message tends to come when you've referenced something that isn't available to use.

have you tried just adding a Title layout to an existing page layout and referencing that in the TOC?

Thanks for your replies, Laura.

Yes, the layout contains one page, set to page type Title.

I also tried adding a new page to the Chapter layout, and setting that to Page Type = Normal. That didn't work either. Also, I prefer to keep these elements separate, instead of jamming everything into Chapter.flpgl.

I really suspect the error message is pointing to the real problem, which is some kind of internal damage to the project files.

New question for the forum: is there a way to run any kind of diagnostics on a project? Is there a utility within Flare, or external, that can do a "clean up" of the project? Does MadCap Analyzer handle this kind of thing?

[ajturnersurrey]

Analyzer will identify 1001 (or more) potential problems with your project. It doesn't "automatically" clean up your project, but it gives you the information to do your own intelligent clean up. It highlights any "critical" issues, where things are actually broken, as distinct from "Information" issues which mainly identify untidiness.

[ajturnersurrey]

I should say you can go under Build > Clean Project... in Flare. This gets rid of your output folder and everything built up in it. I run this occasionally, when a project has been being maintained over a long period. And its always my first 'self-help' step if I have an output that won't build.

[NorthEast]

New question for the forum: is there a way to run any kind of diagnostics on a project? Is there a utility within Flare, or external, that can do a "clean up" of the project? Does MadCap Analyzer handle this kind of thing?

In simplistic terms, Analyzer is a more advanced version of the Project Analysis feature in Flare, which is expanded to include many of the options that you can see in Flare's reports.

However, Analyzer wouldn't help identify or fix the type of error you're experiencing.

[pelikano]

I should say you can go under Build > Clean Project... in Flare. This gets rid of your output folder and everything built up in it. I run this occasionally, when a project has been being maintained over a long period. And its always my first 'self-help' step if I have an output that won't build.

I was not even aware of this feature (or forgot about it after the initial plunge into Flare). I will give this a try soon, regardless of the outcome of the current problem. Thanks AJ.

[pelikano]

In simplistic terms, Analyzer is a more advanced version of the Project Analysis feature in Flare, which is expanded to include many of the options that you can see in Flare's reports.

However, Analyzer wouldn't help identify or fix the type of error you're experiencing.

Thanks, Dave.

[pelikano]

A quick update.

I'm in contact with Support and Rob H. pointed out that the compile error was because the <body> tag got dropped from the topic file. Editing the file fixed that.

Rob also found that the reason I could not see any art work placed in the "cover" page layout was that my body style had background color set to white instead of transparent (the default). This I must have done back in the early days of playing with Flare, the styles, etc. My bad. The perils of learn-as-you-go.

Still don't understand why when I open the "cover" topic in Flare, I see it formatted in my Chapter layout, instead of the Cover layout that it is assigned in the TOC.

[pelikano]

Mystery solved. Rob figured it out.

Still don't understand why when I open the "cover" topic in Flare, I see it formatted in my Chapter layout, instead of the Cover layout that it is assigned in the TOC.

When you open a topic in Flare, the page layout defaults to that of the Primary Target.

Obviously, my cover topic is only for use in the PDF target. But my project's Primary Target = WebHelp.

When I switched primary to the PDF target, and opened the cover topic, voila: there was my cover with the art work that resides in the Cover page layout, right in the editor.

I don't know whether this behavior is documented in Flare's Help, and frankly I don't feel like wading through all the results a search of their Help returns. Just glad to learn a bit more about how Flare works.

Thanks everyone for your assistance, and thanks Rob H.!

[Annie]

I could really use some help in a related problem. New to Flare, I created a Title Page layout based on the sample.flpgl file. My title page layout has only a title page and empty page (I deleted the R, L, and F pages from the page layout). However, when I build the project to PDF, the title page includes 4 pages. How do you delete the extra pages in the title topic?

[ajturnersurrey]

Note sure I quite follow what you have done, but if you have a Title Page layout will be called from the TOC, to be used for a specific topic or topics.
The TOC is the place to check exactly what is set, both on the topic you are expecting to use this layout and the following topic.

Once one topic in your TOC goes to use the Title layout from your Title Page layout subsequent topics will continue to flow into that page layout if they are not set with a ChapterBreak to use a different layout (eg Chapters). This could result in you having more "Title" pages than expected.

If you have too much content in your topic to fit into a single Title layout extra pages will be generated still using the same layout until that content has all been presented. (You might have blank spaces/carriage returns you were unaware of, making the topic longer than necessary).

And if you have chosen Auto-end on left page: 'Enabled' you would expect that empty page to get used after the Title page - you need to choose 'Disabled' to avoid this .