Page Layout for Last Page in Document

[Carlsen]

Hi All,

What I would like to do is create a page layout that includes a custom footer for the last page of a document. This footer would include the company logo and some other information.

I know I can create a page layout with this custom footer in it, then set the last topic in the document to use this page layout, but the issue is that this final topic may extend over multiple pages, which means this footer would be on every page, not just on the last page. How do I create a page layout that will only have the footer on the last page, regardless of how many pages to the topic extends?

Anyone have any suggestions about how to deal with this problem?


Thanks,
Josh

[SteveS]

Just when the wife has run off with my laptop running Flare...

You can create page layouts with first and last page designs. Seem to remember when you create the page layout you can right click the layouts on the right (someone please chime in with the actual process) to set the layout designs.

You can then apply the page layout to the end matter in your master TOC. If this is the only difference you could apply it to the whole project.

HTH

[Carlsen]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply. When I go to create a new page in the layout in Flare 10, I don't have any option for a last page. I have the following options:
Title Page
First Page
First Left Page
First Right Page
Left Page
Right Page
Normal Page
Empty Page
Empty Left Page
Empty Right Page

Seems like that should be plenty, except no option for a last page. Empty page doesn't work, because I never expect the page to be empty. Sometimes I come across things like this in Flare that seem like it's an obvious feature, but Flare doesn't have it. Maybe there was a good reason for not including a last page, and I'm not sure if other products like Framemaker have such a feature. There has to be a way to do it though because I've seen it in plenty of documents. Back to the drawing board anyway. Any ideas?


Thanks,
Josh

[kwag_myers]

One option is to insert a Page Footer Proxy to the topic, which only displays on the last page of the topic. The down side to this is the footer is immediately after the text and not at the bottom of the page. See my post on using a blank table style (near the end of the thread) for a hack: Align body text block to bottom of page (PDF)

[ajturnersurrey]

I do this, when needed, by pointing my final topic at specially created Final_page layout, then watch that that topic never gets longer than a page. This only works for very small and closely controlled documents.

I (long ago) submitted a feature request for the ability to set a Last Page layout - another from you would increase the chances of the feature being added in the future!

[Carlsen]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'll submit a feature request for this and see what happens. I'll give your suggestions a shot.


Thanks,
Josh

[BobMerrill]

I've just managed to do this successfully. It's a bit of a headstand to get it to work, but it does.

My technique relies on the fact that I'm not using a TOC in this document, as there is a TOC entry for the last page content that uses a different page layout. I'm sure there are ways to prevent such a TOC entry from appearing, even when you have a TOC and bookmarks in the document.

The way I’m doing it is this:
- I have a first page layout, which uses the tabbed banner at the top which includes a logo. It embeds the document title in the banner.
- I have identical left and right page layouts which both use the tabbed banner without the logo, as well as the three-column footer.
- Finally, I have a “Normal page” which I use for the last page. I got it to appear by creating a new Last Page topic, inserting it in the TOC, and putting chapter break in the TOC for that topic and choosing the Normal page (the TOC doesn’t actually show up in the document).
- I then cut the content for the last page (after looking at the PDF output) into the Last Page topic. Voila…

Hope that helps.