First time user - why are HTM pages created for these?

[straygoat]

Hello all,

I've just used Flare for the very first time and it produced some unexpected results. I'm not sure what went wrong, so I thought I'd ask for help.

What I have is a series of FrameMaker docs which predominantly consist of:

• Heading 1
  
  A paragraph consisting of introduction text blah blah blah
  
  A line stating: To achieve this:
  
  Numbered procedure (using styles created in FM).
  
  Links to other sections.

Prior to importing the book, I added a filename marker to the Heading 1 (and Headings 2, 3 where they occur) and also added TopicAlias markers for context-sensitive help. Now, the file also has other markers already - for cross references to other books etc.

In Flare, I created a new project by importing the FM book. I chose to import the styles etc., too and set the output to HTML Help.

I expected (hoped more like) to get:

A list of files - the .gifs, and a HTML file for each chapter and also HTML files for all of the sub-section within the chapters.

What I got instead was:

A list of files, but instead of a HTML file for each chapter and sub section, there were loads more - Flare cut the sections off as soon as they got to a numbered list and created a new file for that. Ditto any cross references.

So the output was something like:

Heading 1 and intro in 1 file.

Numbered procedure in another file.

Links to other sections in another file.


Could anyone explain what has gone wrong or tell me how to get the output I was hoping for? I'm struggling to be honest!

Thanks.

[NorthEast]

When you import, you can select which styles will start a new topic.
You can check these on the New Topic styles tab of the import file. Typically, you'd just select the heading level styles, but it sounds like you've also selected the styles used for your numbered lists or links.

[straygoat]

Ah, thanks. I get it now.

In the end, I decided to just import the .chm help file we already have. That seemed to be simpler.

One other question I have though - I have imported the .chm which consists of lots of folders (each representing one of our old FrameMaker 'books') and each file within those is a 'topic'. I wondered if it is possible to generate a PDF from just one of the folders, rather than the entire .chm list?

[LKupka]

When you import a CHM, you'll get a separate topic (.htm file) for each CHM topic. Now that your content is in a Flare project, you can create whatever type of output you want from it and choose what you want each output to contain. I think the easiest thing to do is to create a TOC that contains only the topics you want in the PDF. Then create a PDF target and select the TOC you just created. (Select the TOC from the "Master TOC" drop-down list on the General tab of the Target Editor for that target.) Then build your PDF output.

[straygoat]

Thanks. I've not gotten round to looking at the TOC stuff yet, so will do that when I go back to work. Quite impressed with Flare so far.