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Master Page Bugs? Won't Update Changes or Apply New Page Correctly.

Explorer ,
Jan 25, 2013 Jan 25, 2013

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I've been working with master pages for our new project templates and have found what appears to be several big problems:

1. When I make changes in the Master Page (.htt file), none of those changes propogate to the topics that have been assigned this same Master Page. Shouldn't it do this?

2. As an alternative, I tried applying a Master Page to multiple topics in the Topic List pod. The first problem with that is that you cannot apply the existing Master Page. So, I had to create a fresh Master Page with my changes, then tried applying it. However, several problems occur. Firstly, none of the new Master Page formatting appears correctly. Secondly, for some reason it is duplicating breadcrumbs at the top of the page (each of the Master Pages, before and after only had one breadcrumb). It seems to have combined some of the formatting from both before and after Master pages.

I should also note that when I apply the Master Page with any changes to a new topic, it does work correctly.

I have read the documentation thoroughly and feel I am doing this correctly. The problem seems to be that the functionality doesn't work as promised. I see this as a grave problem. Our templates are likely to change with time, and I need the ability to apply changes en masse.

Does anyone know what might be the problem?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Jan 25, 2013 Jan 25, 2013

Hi there

First, you must understand that Master Pages are used in two completely different ways. Sounds like you are making changes to the Body Placeholder of the Master Page and expecting to see those changes influence the topics linked. Sorry, but that has never worked.

So here are the two ways Master Pages are designed to work in RoboHelp.

Method 1 - Used to infuence EXISTING content.

Perhaps you have created 1,000 topics and you now wish to add a Header, Footer or both to these existing topics.

...

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Community Expert ,
Jan 25, 2013 Jan 25, 2013

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1. No - working as designed - see other discussions by Rick (Captiv8r) on how MP are used.

2. Sure you haven't turned on breadcrumbs in the SSL recipe also? That's how you usually end up with double sets of breadcrumbs (one in the MP, one in SSL)

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LEGEND ,
Jan 25, 2013 Jan 25, 2013

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Hi there

First, you must understand that Master Pages are used in two completely different ways. Sounds like you are making changes to the Body Placeholder of the Master Page and expecting to see those changes influence the topics linked. Sorry, but that has never worked.

So here are the two ways Master Pages are designed to work in RoboHelp.

Method 1 - Used to infuence EXISTING content.

Perhaps you have created 1,000 topics and you now wish to add a Header, Footer or both to these existing topics. You define a Master Page and add a Header, Footer or both to the Master Page and You associate it with the topics. All those topics now have a Header and/or Footer. Any changes to the Header and/or Footer are populated across all linked topics.

Method 2 - Used to influence NEW content you create.

Perhaps you know that you will be creating many topics that should have the same look and feel. Maybe each of them begin with a table containing an image and some text. So you define a Master Page and configure the Body placeholder as you wish to see it. When you create new topics, you point to the Master Page so that as the topics are created, the Body content of the Master Page is populated into the topic as a starting off point. Once the topic has been initially created, changes to the Master Page ARE NOT reflected in the topics. This works identically to making a copy of a document. The copy looks identical to the original. And any changes to the original will never be copied over to the copy. Only NEW copies will receive the changes.

As far as the Breadcrumbs go, you likely have GLOBAL Breadcrumbs enabled in the Single Source Layout recipe. This means that every topic gets Breadcrumbs during the process of creating the output. If you are trying to employ SELECTIVE Breadcrumbs by adding the PlaceHolder to the Master Page, you need to disable the GLOBAL Breadcrumbs in order to prevent seeing double.

Hope this helps a bit... Rick

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Explorer ,
Jan 25, 2013 Jan 25, 2013

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I think that anyone steeped in FrameMaker would be confused by the term "Master Pages" being used this way, and it's something that Adobe should think about, since these products are bundled. I was also confused because I had read that in earlier versions of RH, Master Pages were referred to as "Templates."

Based on your explanation, I do understand how Master Pages can actually be used. However, it seems to me that something that allowed you to manage the layout universally, the way that I describe it, would be a lot more logical and practical. For instance, in my company, people change their minds about design decisions. When you have a Help system with 1,000 topics, how can you go back and fix the Topic TOC on all the pages without editing each page individually. Maybe there's still something else that I'm missing here?

As for the double breadcrumbs, your suggestions were my first thought. But since you explain that only headers and footers update, maybe that is why there was some sort of mid-air collision. I just had the breadcrumbs in the body on both master pages, before and after. This seems to appear consistent with my misuse or misunderstanding of how Master Pages work.

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