Missing Topics in Printed Doc

[twimom]

I am losing my mind! I am trying to generate printed doc for the sole purpose of sorting a bunch of pages in hard copy to rethink the organization of one part of my projects. Ironically, every time I generate the printed doc (i've done it about 20 times so far), these pages are nowhere to be found! I've included them in the TOC, I've moved them out of a book within a book, I've deleted them from the TOC and added them to a book that is generated as a chapter. I've renamed the book to remove non-alpha characters. I've deleted the book and created a new book with a completely unrelated name. NOTHING I do will get these pages to print. SO - I have 175 pp. document of the 175 pages that DONT need to be printed and I can't for the life of me print the +/-20 pages that are the ones I want in hard copy.

[Guest]

hmmm - just had to do the same thing to pull out a chapter of my help system for a training gig. worked fine. I actually ONLY selected what I wanted to print to be included in the compile, rather than sending the whole system through the process.

without seeing how you set up the compile job I can't guess where the issue is. But if you haven't already, try excluding (removing) all inapplicable topics and chapters (books) from the compile and see what it comes up with.

[twimom]

OK - maybe I'm going about this all wrong - how do I select one "book" to generate print? I only see the "all or nothing" options on Batch Generate - and believe me, I've been all over the "properties" of everything imaginable trying to figure out why these topcs are apparently marked "do not print" or "exclude from final" (although they were included in the compiled html help w/ no problem). Since I haven't done anything to mark all of the other topic for printing, I can't figure out how these topcis could be marked to ignore. But if there's some secret to printing just one book, PLEASE share!

[Guest]

it's easy - give me a few minutes to whip up a quick how to and post it.

[Chet Zeshonski · Accepted solution]

Try this:

1. Open your project.
2. Click the Project tab.
3. Right-click the Single Source Layouts folder and select New Layout. The New Layout dialog will appear.
4. Enter a name for the new layout in the field provided.
5. Select Printed Documentation from the Output Type drop-down menu.
6. Click the OK button to close the New Layout dialog. The new output will be listed in the Single Source Layouts folder, and the Print Document dialog will appear.
7. Click the Next button.
8. Delete everything from the Chapter Content display window.
9. Click once on the desired chapter in the Topics display window.
10. Click the > button.
11. Save the layout.
12. Generate the output.

I can't be sure, but I'd guess that you added these topics to your TOC but didn't update your Printed Documentation layout. This layout matches your project's TOC when you first open/save it, but it doesn't automatically update itself after that; you have to add new topics manually.

Try that and let us know how you get on. Good luck!

[Guest]

first, I am using RH version X5.0.2.

1. On your Project tab, all the way at the bottom, open the Single Source Layouts directory. Double click on Printed Documentation.

2. Set up your doc name, path, and build expression as needed. Click on Next.

3. This next window is where you can select any or all topics to include in the printed doc. It defaults, I believe, to all topics and chapters. Just select each chapter or topic you do not want and click on the left-pointing arrows to move these topics out of the list on the right side of the window. Only the topics and chapters listed in the right side (under chapter layout) will print. This selection window works much like the Browse Sequencer tool.

4. When all appropriate topics are excluded / included, click on Next. In this window, you are establishing the sections of the resulting doc - set up sections as needed. If you aren't publishing this doc for distribution (just for yourself), I wouldn't worry too much about this step. Click on Next.

5. The last step before the doc generates is to determine which Styles set you will use - the styles you use in RH, or a Word Style set. Again, since this is just for you, don't sweat it. I just use the Project's CSS Styles (select this option from the menu at the top of the window).

6. Click on Finish, let 'er rip, and see what comes out.

[twimom]

Thank you, thank you, thank you - both to "LMarden" and "ChetZeshonski"! Hopefully someone from RoboHelp will see this thread and think to add some kind of warning/reminder message that appears when a user goes to generate printed doc, "Have you updated your Printed Doc layout with any changes to your TOC?" I really appreciate the online support! 🙂

[Chet Zeshonski]

Good thing this subject was raised, as I realized that I had recently created a new topic and added it to my TOC but had not yet added it to my printed documentation layout.

If you want to perform a quick check of the topics included in your printed doc layout, right-click the layout, select Properties, click the Next button, and examine the topics in the Topics display window. The page icon for each topic included in the layout is blue; icons for excluded topics appear white.