Topic changes heading levels

[Judy]

Art and Richard both recommended the idea of insetting topic body text 
between the headings in a container doc.  My biggest qualm about using 
container docs with all of the headings then insetting the body text is 
the sheer number of insets. 

I recently tried breaking my doc set into topic-sized fm docs, then 
building the different outputs with the topic fm's as insets to a 
chapter container.  It worked great w/ 1 chapter, but when I tested it 
with the first 3 chapters, FM couldn't handle it.  (50% CPU usage  on a 
2 Ghz CPU w/ 2Gb RAM and only FM was open. Plenty of hard drive space 
too.) I may be able to compromise, in this case, and inset only those 
whose headings change though.

Ted also suggested a tool by Silicon Prairie Software that uses mapping 
tables to convert 1 para style to another.  It sounds like I could keep 
a book of those topics whose headings need to shift levels and use this 
tool to set the correct heading level before generating the final 
output.  That sounds easy enough. Does anyone see any "gotchas" with 
that approach?

Thank you all for your thoughts on this question. I always learn so much 
from you on this list and I appreciate the time you take to make it what 
it is.  I hope someday, I'll have gained enough experience and wisdom to 
return the favor.
Judy

Combs, Richard wrote:
> Judy wrote: 
>  
>   
>> The challenge is how to best handle those topics that appear in more
>> than 1 output, but at different heading levels--most commonly an H3 in
>> the full manual becomes an H2 in the quickstarts.
>>
>> I've thought about:
>>  - Multiple conditionalized headings, but that would cause xref
>>     
> issues.
>   
>>  - Building a container doc for each output where the headings are
>> entered directly but topic content inset by reference.  This may work,
>> but I'm not sure it's the best answer.  Does anyone else have any
>>     
> ideas?
>
> By all means, put the headings in the container and only the body text
> in the text inset source. Even in the absence of your heading-level
> conflict, this is a pretty good idea. Cross-references to pgfs inside a
> text inset are a pain. Keeping the section headings in the container doc
> lets you point xrefs to those headings. 
>
> I prefer to have the section headings in the container doc and only the
> content under them in the text inset source. Haven't seen a downside.
> YMMV, of course... 
>
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------
>
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