Advice on applying conditions

[rjn572]

I'm looking for the best way to apply conditions to two manuals that share 95% of the content - target will be pdf.

Manual 1 is now imported and formatted in Flare
Manual 2 shares the same content as Manual 1 with the addition of some new paragraphs and figures across all topics.

I was intending to make:
Manual 1 = Condition A
Manual 2 = Condition B.

Selecting all the content of Manual 1 (at sentence level) and applying Conditions A + B.
Then adding the content for Manual 2 and applying Condition B to the new content.

Would this be the best method?

Thanks for any help.

[NorthEast]

Why do you need condition A?
You don't need a condition on anything that is used by both targets, just the content that you need to exclude from a particular target.

If the difference is just the extra content for Manual 2, just apply a condition on this extra content, and exclude that condition from the Manual 1 target.

[rjn572]

Thanks Dave,

Manual 2 is basically Manual 1 with some new paragraphs and figures across the topics and also some paragraphs and figures deleted.

Using this method how would I configure the conditions where Manual 2 has paragraphs/figures deleted (or rather doesn't use the paragraphs from Manual 1) ?

[gbusch]

In short:

Contents that are ONLY for "Manual 1" and NOT for "Manual 2" need a condition that is excluded by the target output of "Manual 2".
And vise versa contents that are ONLY for "Manual 2" and NOT for "Manual 1" need a condition that is excluded by the target output of "Manual 1".
Contents that are used in BOTH manuals don't need any condition.
So you need the two conditions "Manual 1" and "Manual 2".

If you have paragraphs/figures etc. in one topic that refer to only one manual, apply the corresponding condition to them.
Example: You have a figure that should be shown only in "Manual 1". Apply the condition "Manual 1" to it. So it will be excluded by "Manual 2". And so you can use the same topic for both outputs.

If you have whole topics that refer to only one manual, apply the corresponding condition to the corresponding toc entry.
Example: You have topic that belongs only to "Manual 2". Apply the condition "Manual 2" to the toc entry that links to that topic. This toc entry will be ignored by "Manual 1". So you can use the same toc for both outputs.

You don't need to set the target output of "Manual X" to include the condition "Manual X" since if nothing is set it will be included anyway.

[rjn572]

Thanks very much for your help.

[ChoccieMuffin]

For clarity, you could add the word "ONLY" to your conditions, so you don't forget what they mean!