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The Document Manager
The Document Manager lets you organize the source documents in your project. Within the Document Manager, you can add, remove, and rearrange the groups and source documents in your project. There are three components that can be found in the Document Manager: source documents, top-level groups, and subgroups.
Figure 3-3: The Document Manager
What Are Groups?
Groups are containers that hold your source documents and allow you to create the organizational structure for your Help system. When you first create a new project, ePublisher Express will automatically create a new group based on the project name and add it to the Document Manager. In the Document Manager, groups are broken into two categories: top-level groups and subgroups; see Figure 3-4.
Figure 3-4: Top-level Groups and Subgroups
Top-level Groups
A top-level group is the primary container that holds all of your source documents and subgroups, and it is the main group under which the entry-point file will be created. The entry-point file is composed of all the generated output files contained within the top-level group, and it is the file that launches your entire Help set. Since each top-level group generates its own entry-point file, these groups are particularly important when merging multiple Help sets. If you are creating multivolume help, top-level groups serve as the primary volume under which all of your table of contents levels are contained.
Top-level groups allow you to break your Help set into multiple and separate volumes; for example, if you want to create a Help set that contains a User’s Guide and a Developer’s Guide, then you would need to create two top-level groups called User’s Guide and Developer’s Guide. Once you have created your top-level groups, you can then create subgroups.
Subgroups
Unlike top-level groups, subgroups do not create a generated entry-point file. Instead, subgroups are virtual folders that provide you with a way of organizing the source documents within top-level groups. These subgroups serve as a visual aid for you to organize your source documents within their respective top-level groups. Subgroups are merely a means of arranging and categorizing source documents within top-level groups and do not represent an actual volume or table of contents level in a generated Help set.
Adding, Removing, and Rearranging Groups
Groups are virtual containers that hold your source documents and allow you to manage the organizational flow of your content. By default, when you first create a new project, a new group based on the project name will be added to the Document Manager. A group can either be a top-level group or a subgroup. If the group will be the primary container for all of the source documents and organizational levels within your output, then it will be a top-level group. If the source documents within a top-level group need to be further organized, then subgroups need to be created. Subgroups are simply virtual folders that allow you to organize your source documents into a more visibly coherent layout in the Document Manager.
Adding Groups
In order to add source documents to a project, there must always be at least one group in the Document Manager. A group based on the project’s name will automatically be added to the Document Manager when you first create a project; therefore, you will be able to add source documents to your project.
To add a group to your project:
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Select Project > New Group. |
Adding Subgroups
You can add subgroups, or groups within other groups, to your project to organize the source documents in your project into a hierarchy, perhaps representing the folder hierarchy where the original source documents are stored. Subgroups are basically virtual folders that allow you to rearrange the source documents in your project. By rearranging your source documents into subgroups, you can organize how the source documents are displayed in the Document Manager.
To add a subgroup to your project:
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Select Project > New Group. |
Renaming Groups
If you want an existing group to have a different name, you can rename it. For example, by default, when you create a new project, ePublisher Express will create a new group based on the project name. Oftentimes, you will want to change the default name of the group that is added to your project.
To rename a group:
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Press Enter or click outside of the typing area to change the name. |
Removing Groups
If a group is no longer being used, you can remove the group from the Document Manager. When you remove a group from your project, any documents associated with that group will also be removed from your project. The documents are not deleted from your computer but are removed from the current project.
To remove a group:
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From the menu bar, choose Edit > Remove. |
Adding, Removing, Rearranging, and Relinking Source Documents
Without source documents, ePublisher Express would not be able to populate style information, and there would be no content to generate output with. By using the Document Manager, you can add or remove source documents from groups, rearrange the order of source documents within groups, and relinking source documents with broken file paths.
Adding Source Documents to a Project
When you create a new project, a top-level group is automatically placed in the Document Manager, and if you opted to add source documents, then the group will contain all these source documents. If you need to add more source documents, there are multiple ways to do so.
To add a document to your project:
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In the Document Manager, click to select the group to which you would like to add the source document, and do one of the following: |
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Choose Project >Add Document. |
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Right-click on the group name, and select Add Document from the contextual menu. |
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If you chose one of the first two options, an Open dialog box will display. In the Open dialog, choose the source file you want to add to the project and then click Open. |
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If no files appear in the Open dialog, select the type of document you are trying to add from the Files of type drop-down menu. |
Rearranging Source Documents in a Project
Once you have added source documents to the groups within the Document Manager, you can rearrange and move the source documents within the same group or move them to a new group.
To change the order of documents within a group:
To move a document into a different group:
Opening Source Documents from the Document Manager
If you need to edit any content or information within your source documents, you will need to open the source document.When you add source documents to the groups within the project, the source documents listed in the Document Manager serve as a link to the original source document. When you double-click on a source document in the Document Manager, the source document will open.
Relinking Documents
Sometimes, the link to a particular source document’s original location path may get broken. This could be because the document was moved to another location, deleted, or somehow became corrupt. When this happens, ePublisher Express will display a Broken Link icon next to the document in the Output Explorer and in the Document Manager.
To relink your source documents:
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Double-click on the Broken Link icon next to the source document in the Document Manager. |
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Click the Open button. |
Removing Documents
You can remove documents from an ePublisher Express project; however, any styles that are associated with that specific source document will remain in the Style Designer. For example, if UserManualTitle is only specific to one particular document in your project, and you remove that document from the project, the style name UserManualTitle and its style information will remain in the Style Designer.
To remove a document from a project:
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Choose Edit > Remove. |
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Right-click and choose Edit > Remove from the contextual menu. |
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Press Delete. |
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Click Yes to remove the document from your project, or click No to keep the document in your project. |
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If you have set properties or options for any styles in your project that are only found in the document you are removing, those styles and settings will be removed from your project when you remove the document. |
