Conditional text for single-sourcing

[Nancy Allison]

Whooooaaa . . . .

It WORKS! Thank you, eter.

In case anyone else is interested, here is what works:

Scenario: I have two conditional text tags: PDF and Online.

For my PDF, which people will print and use in the field, I want this to show as my table title:

Table 5.1  Connections and Switches

For my online help, I want this to show:

Connections and Switches

To set it up, I entered this text into the Table Title field (the one that ends with a pilcrow):

Connections and Switches <return>
Connections and Switches [The pilcrow appears here, FYI]

So, I have two paragraphs in my Table Title field.

I tagged the first one with my TableTitle tag, which inserted the autonumber, which happens to be 5.1. I then went into the Pagination tab of the Paragraph Designer for that tag. under Format I selected "Run-in Head" and clicked "Apply."

I tagged the second paragraph with Body tag.

Now when I display the PDF conditional text, I get "Table 5.1  Connections and Switches" only.

When I display the online conditional text, I get "Connections and Switches" only.

The "Run-in" setting for the Table Title does not cause it to run into, say, the first Heading cell or the first line of the next paragraph. It ends with the TableTitle field, I guess because it is an isolated text flow as Peter said.

Awesome! Thanks again! 

--Nancy

On May 12, 2009, Peter Gold <peter at knowhowpro.com> wrote: 

The autonumber is a property of the Table Title paragraph format in
your document. You can have more than one paragraph in a table header,
and each paragraph can have a different format. So, you create and
apply a non-autonumbered paragraph format to the complete sentence you
use for your online/PDF table title, and manage its visibility with
show/hide conditions.

However, because a table title space is an isolated text flow (like a
table cell), the last paragraph in it is considered to be the "end of
flow," and is marked with the curly section symbol, not a paragraph
return symbol. When you select and apply a condition to the whole
end-of-flow paragraph, when you hide the condition, the curly symbol
isn't hidden, so it leaves a blank line at the end of the table title
or table cell. You can overcome this nuisance by including the Run-In
property to either the autonumbered or non-autonumbered paragraph
format, so that there's no extra blank line caused by hiding one or
the other paragraph.


HTH

Regards,

Peter
__________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices