Stuck trying to create multiple PDFs

[Sarianna]

Help! I’m stuck trying to divide a Flare project into separate PDF documents. I made a separate Print TOC, which is organized into books that I want to correspond to the individual PDF documents, like this:

(Book) Introduction (with Document Body Page Layout applied)

• (Topic) Introduction title page (with Title Page Layout applied)
  (Topic) Copyright page (with Copyright Page Layout applied)
  Contents
  Topic 1
  Topic 2
  Topic 3

(Book) Installation (with Document Body Page Layout applied)

• (Topic) Installation title page (with Title Page Layout applied)
  (Topic) Copyright page (with Copyright Page Layout applied)
  Contents
  Topic 1
  Topic 2
  Topic 3

(Book) Configuration (with Document Body Page Layout applied)

• (Topic) Configuration title page (with Title Page Layout applied)
  (Topic) Copyright page (with Copyright Page Layout applied)
  Contents
  Topic 1
  Topic 2
  Topic 3

… and so on

The printed output properties for each book are set to:
- Break Type: Chapter Break
- Page Layout: Document Body
- Page Type: Normal

The title page (topic) propeties for each title page are set to:
- Break Type: Page Layout Break
- Page Layout: Title Page
- Page Type: Title

The copyright page (topic) properties are set to:
- Break Type: Page Layout Break
- Page Layout: Copyright Page
- Page Type: Normal

For the rest of the topics, i.e. the actual document contents, I haven’t set any individual printed output properties, so that they should use the general settings defined for the PDF document target:
- Output Type: PDF
- Master TOC: Print TOC
- Master Page Layout: Document Body Layout
- Master Stylesheet: MyProduct Master Stylesheet

Also, “Generate multiple documents for native XPS/PDF output” is selected on the Advanced tab of the PDF document target and the stylesheet medium is set to “print”.

However, with all these settings, the PDF build contains only the title and copyright pages, the rest of the topics are completely missing. The copyright page looks like it should, but the title page is not applying either the title page layout or the title topic content: it is just an empty page with document body layout.

I had assumed that the page layout defined separately for topics (here, the title and copyright pages) would override the page layout defined for the book (the rest of the document should have document body layout), but it does not seem to work (and for whatever reason, the rest of the topics after the copyright page are not even built).

I’m sure I’m doing something (or a lot of things) wrong here, but I don’t really know where to start tweaking the settings. I have tried to set everything according to the instructions that I’ve managed to find out for dealing with multiple PDF documents, but since these instructions are scattered piecemeal throughout Flare’s help, this discussion board and some helpful websites, it’s hard to figure out everything that needs to be done and in what order.

Can someone please point out if there’s something glaringly wrong with my settings? Or recommend a good tutorial or book or other resource for creating PDF documents with Flare - specifically, creating multiple PDFs from one project? I really feel like I need some kind of for-dummies/complete-idiots/hold-your-hand type of instructions at this point. All I want is a bunch of simple PDFs with title, copyright, TOC, and body, and it’s getting really frustrating how complicated this seems to be…

Thanks in advance,
Sarianna

[jasonsmith]

The only thing that I can think of off the top of my head is that your document body page layout doesn't contain a body frame. Does this page layout normally work with other projects?
Other things you might want to check are any conditional tags on topics in the TOC, moving the content out of the books and trying to build, maybe creating separate targets for each PDF and applying conditions to cherrypick content from the master TOC. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

[Sarianna]

Thank you Jason, I'll try those tips out. I'm new to Flare and this is my first project - basically just transferring our existing Word/PDF documentation to Flare. The webhelp turned out fine, but PDF is really giving me a headache.

[Sarianna]

To answer my own question at long last, I finally ended up manually creating separate TOCs and targets for each PDF document in the project. This is probably not the most elegant solution possible, but at least it works for me, since I only need a handful of separate PDFs.

[Nita Beck]

To answer my own question at long last, I finally ended up manually creating separate TOCs and targets for each PDF document in the project. This is probably not the most elegant solution possible, but at least it works for me, since I only need a handful of separate PDFs.

(Forgive me as I've not read through your entire original post, so I hope my answer here is not off track.)

There is absolutely nothing inelegant about your solution. In my opinion, it's a perfectly fine solution, and it's one that I use myself. For example, I just finished a Flare project out of which I produce three PDF documents. The project has three different targets and three different TOCs. The PDFs share some content, but there's a lot of unique content in each. I decided to produce all three PDFs out of one Flare project because, purpose-wise, they are so closely related. (One is a design document, one is a description document, and the last is a procedural document, all regarding the same subject matter.)

[Sarianna]

Thanks Nita! Yes, this solution seems to be working well. I'm just surprised that Flare's help does not mention this technique in connection with creating multiple documents. The help page for editing target settings has the following instructions for creating multiple documents, which I tried at first with frustratingly little success:

"If you are generating PDF output directly (rather than going through FrameMaker or Microsoft Word to produce it), you can split the generated output into multiple documents, rather than using the default, which results in only one document. To create multiple PDF documents, you must also specify chapter breaks at the appropriate places in the TOC (not the TOC that displays in the PDF output, but in the "outline TOC" used to determine the printed manual content and structure). This can be done on the Printed Output tab of the TOC Properties dialog. By specifying chapter breaks, you are letting Flare know where you want to split the output into new PDF documents. Then in the Advanced tab of the Target Editor, select the "Generate multiple documents for native XPS/PDF output" option."

In addition, it might be newbie-friendly to also add something along the lines of "You can also create multiple PDFs by creating a TOC and target for each and picking the content for the TOCs from the project's topics."

This is probably something that goes without saying for experienced Flare users, but for a newbie such as myself it was quite a cognitive leap to realize that one project can have more than one PDF target using the same page layout settings . (Flare's examples have PDFs with different-sized page layouts, which was not what I wanted.)

[jknasinski]

I'm about to do a similar thing in my project. I want 4, possibly 5, separate PDF outputs and will be doing individual TOCs and Targets for each.
I'd like to see a more comprehensive training guide or something from MadCap on doing this type of thing. I've been doing this sort of by trial and error right now and it's very time consuming. A clearer guide with examples would be great... hint hint MadCap...

[Nita Beck]

hint hint MadCap...

The best way to request an enhancement is to put in a feature request here: https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx. That gets your suggestion directly into MadCap's system. That doesn't necessarily ensure that they'll act on the request, but it will get looked at there.