Meta tags to refresh topic pages

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RH9

TCS3

Word 2010

Webhelp

How do you include meta tags in web help topics to ensure that the user browser loads the latest version of the help topic page, not the browser cache version?

Rob

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I checked the Master page html which shows a meta tag as follows:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

The desired behaviour is for help pages opened in a user browser automatically refreshed and display the updated pages instead of the cached pages.

At the moment, the pages do not refresh automatically even though the Help has been updated.

Any comments would be helpful

Rob

[Peter Grainge]

Google "Meta tag force refresh" but read the responses carefully. It looks like what you want can be done but there may be consequences. Whether or not they concern you is something only you can decide.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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Thanks, i'll look into it.

One question though, if i edit the HTML source of the master page with meta tag information, will this be retained and generated in the help output?

[Peter Grainge]

Best to test the tags you want in a new dummy project.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Captiv8r]

Good morning (Well, it's morning where I live anyway)

I'm going to guess adding the desired tags to a Master Page will ultimately fail UNLESS you create topics based on the Master Page.

This is because Master Pages work in two ways.

1. When creating topics based on the Master Page, content such as Meta tags and the like are copied into the new topic.

2. When using a Master Page to update only existing topics, the only things that are changed are what is visible on the page. Headers and Footers mainly.

Please do report back what you find. My testing seems to indicate it likely won't work. At least it won't happen with Master Pages. You will likely discover that you need to resort to a find and replace utility to do this. Something like FAR or ReplacEm.

http://www.helpware.net/FAR/

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/bkreplace.html

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

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Rick,

I generate files using the master page for all topics.

I wont fix existing output but rather would like to build in the functionality for the next generation of the project ouput.

Are you saying that fixing the master page wont chnage anything for existing ouptut or are you saying that adding meta tags to the master page wont fix the problem for future generations of the output?

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

As I said earlier, any content that exists will not be changed by changing the Master Page. Once a topic has been created, the only thing you can do with a Master Page to influence it is to assign Headers and Footers. Beyond that, changes are ignored. The only way to coax changes like you are wanting is to either create new topics using the Master Page as a starting point, or to peform a Find and Replace to amend the existing topics.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks