Master Pages on Merged Projects

[mark_anderson_us]

Hi All

I'm evaluating RH and looking to create webhelp for 17 apps (part of suite a la Microsoft Office). There will be many related items that cross child projects. i set up the master, create one child, generated and merged and all went great. What I can't figure out is Master Pages

Is there a way to have the Master Page (inc CSS) apply to all chaild projects? If not, it would mean that any style change would need to be done 17 times, which seems a bit cumbersome.

If not, is there a way to use my master project to create a template for the child?

Regards

mark

[Peter Grainge]

Each project is quite separate and the only visual part that is controlled by the parent is the skin. The parent skin will be displayed for all topics no matter which child they are in except when the child output is opened independently.

In theory you could put the CSS in Resource Manager then when you change it in one project the theory is you can update it back to the Resource Manager so that on opening any other project you get warned it is no longer in sync and you can correct that. That is the theory but I haven't tested it works with CSS files in the same way as when using images.

Resource Manager does not offer Master Pages as an option. I think the easy workaround would be to make sure the Master Page has an identical name in all projects and then copy them while the projects are closed.

To start the child projects get one set up and close it. Then just use Windows copy and paste to create the copies. Open each one and use File > Rename Project.

Did I refer you to my pages on Merged Help? If not take a look there as it should help you at this stage of the game.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge