Javascript footer not showing up in Print Layout

[tcbdon]

Hello,
I am using a single 'footer.js' file to generate all the HTML for the footer of each topic. This allows me to use some variables in the one file that propagate through to all my topics that use it. then change it slightlyf or another project, etc. This simplifies footers considerably. All I see in WYSIWIG is the red box for a Script with my invocation of write_footer(), which lives in the footer.js file.

They work fine for the HTML, or WebHelp layout.

However, when I generate a Print Layout those footers are not showing up at all.

One thought is to use conditional builds for the footers, but that puts me back in the boat of having to manage the footer text and layout in every topic file.

Has anyone been down this road before? Any hope for the weary?

Thanks to all,

Don

[Peter Grainge]

When you create printed documentation, all headers and footers are lost. How you created them is not the issue.

See the topic on printed documentation on my site.

[Guest]

I've struggled with producing high quality printed output from a variety of help packages, RoboHelp included. I had hoped that Flare (a recent purchase) would sort this out for me. And while it does good steps in the right direction I was still left wanting when it came to printed output.

I now have a solution that I am happy with. If you are confident enough with some xml and xsl transforms (which I know are not for everyone), you can get the highquality odd even, bookmarks, pdf including generated headers and footers. All this and still have absolute control of the positioning of every output element via a template.

How do I do it? Using a techology called XML-FO. The FO stands for formatting objects, and is essentially an xml layout language. I then generate my pdf for print via the FOP engine (free download).

Although this is still a bit new, I think we will be hearing alot more from these sorts of techniques and tools in the future. Along with that alot of the mainline authoring tools would do well to provide more support for it.

I understand that alot of these may be over people's heads, but no point keeping a good idea to oneself, and it is alot less ocmplicated than it sounds.

[tcbdon]

Thanks for the info. Peter, as always, your info on Printed Output is extremely valuable. As to my issue, perhaps it confuses the problem to be worrying about a footer.
Let's say I use an embedded .js file to generate any re-usable text somewhere in the body of the document. The .js file is just a bunch of 'document.write()' calls with HTML formatted content. It appears that converting to Word does not follow the <script></script> tags and obtain the embedded text. It is just ignored.

This kind of reusable text solution is only for the online WebHelp version. That's my assertion, if anyone knows different I'd love to hear about it.

thanks again!

don

[MergeThis]

I had looked into Javascript for variable text (in the topic body) but it didn't appear in Print layout (as with your footers). I also looked at inline frames for the same purpose, but that also doesn't work.

I would imagine you could set up a Word template, or even a Word file to use as a shell, to accomplish the footers you need.


Good luck,
Leon