Merging multiple files

[fzvit]

I'm new to Flare and the forum, so I apologize if this question has been asked before: Is there a way to take dozens of separate .htm files/topics and build an output that merges all of them into one file, so that instead of having a TOC with dozens of topics, you have one topic?

[Msquared]

Not so far as I know, I'm afraid, although it would be good. Just cut and paste.

I'm interested to know why you want to merge "dozens" of topic files into a single topic. You may of course have a very good reason for this, but I'm wondering if it's either
because you got lots of very small topics when you imported content from another tool, or because you're still thinking in terms of documents rather than topics?

If you got lots of very small topics from an import, was that because the import requested that new topics started at too low a heading level? For example, in Word, your level 3 headings may make a good point to start a new topic, but if level 4 was specified by mistake, you will indeed end up with a lot of very small topics that need to be merged into bigger topics. In that case, I'd consider redoing the import if possible, unless the number of topics to merge is quite small.

Until I started working in Flare a few months ago, I was used to thinking in terms of documents and chapters. It takes a bit of a mental shift to move to topics and when I imported my Word content into Flare, I anguished over where to make my topic breaks. In the end, although we're too small to reap the benefits of DITA, and therefore I'm not doing "proper" topic-based authoring, I decided to make each Flare topic as close as possible to a single DITA topic, since that will give more flexibility and may be useful if you want to repurpose content later (one of the benefits of single sourcing). This did mean that I had more and smaller topics than if I had mixed DITA topics and topic types in a single Flare topic. I ended up with about 400 topics from a Word document of around 250 pages, but I've not regretted it yet, although I would advise you to structure the topics into subfolders, or you'll never manage to find any of them!

DITA topic types (just in case you're not familiar with them) are:

• Concept (background information - what you need to know)
• Task (procedural information - step-by-step instructions for a single action)
• Reference (Additional information - quick access to facts)

[fzvit]

Thanks for the helpful reply. To sum a long story, developers need the content diced into individual files for importing to another app, but when we build the web output for our users, we'd like to have all of the content merged into one file/TOC item. (Sounds like a dumb plan, huh?) Not a huge deal; we always have the fall-back option of many TOC items. Again, thank you for the reply.

[Thomas Tregner]

An XHTML book target will produce one HTM file with other supporting files which can be viewed as single page from a web browser.
http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... Output.htm

[fzvit]

Thank you for the lead. Not sure I understand the particulars of how it works, but will take more time to research when I return to work next week. Thank you, again.

[Msquared]

I have learned something too! Thanks Thomas.

Another possibility that comes to mind is to use snippets. You could make each bit of content a snippet, then give the developers many topics each containing one snippet, and have a single topic containing all the snippets for your help output. This will mean you only have to update existing content in one place, but if you need to create new content, you will have to remember to add it to a new topic and to the single topic. This may or may not be a good solution for you, although if you design your folder structure carefully and use matching names, so you can easily see the snippet to topic correspondence, it may work.

Just thinking out loud here - I'm still a Flare newbie with lots to learn, so any comments welcomed!