Flare 2020 Book Building 1
In this first of a series of tutorials on building books in Flare (namely PDF), you see how to start a project, set up some essential styles, and create the page layouts.
- Start Flare.
- Start a new Flare project: click File > New Project > New Project.
- Name your new project with some identifying part of your name, followed by _bkbldg1 (for example, davidmc_bkbldg1.flprj. Remember that Flare adds the flprj extension for you.
- Click Next, Empty as the template, and then click Finish. You can use some of the PDF-oriented templates Flare provides, but for learning the Flare system, it's best to start this whole process from scratch.
Set Up the Project
- Delete Topic.htm. Create three topics naming them chapter1.htm, chapter2.htm, and chapter3.htm. A relief that Flare 2020 does not add the boilerplate paragraph and proxy element to each of the these topics (as in the video).
- Next, create two appendixes: appendixA.htm and appendixB.htm.
- Also, in Content Explorer, click Ctrl+T:
- in File Name, name the file title_page, and click Add
- in Source select TopicForIndex.htm, read the explanatory text, then delete it. But leave the gray Proxy bar, name the file index, and click Add
- in Source select TopicForGlossary.htm, read the explanatory text, then delete it. But leave the gray Proxy bar, name the file glossary, and click Add
- in Source select TopicForTOC.htm, name the file toc, and click Add
- One of the first things to do is to style the H1 headings, which will appear at the top of all topics except the title page and maybe the edition notice. In Content Explorer, click Resources then Stylesheets then double-click Styles.css.
- With All Styles displayed in the Stylesheet Editor, select h1, then click Add Selector, use chapter as the new class name then click OK. Notice that h1.chapter is added to Styles.css.
- Now set up h1.chapter for autonumbering: double-click h1.chapter in Styles.css, then click the Auto-number tab, then enter GH:Chapter {chapnum}: in the Enter format field, making sure to add a space after the colon. Click OK. Then click Save All
- To set a color for h1.chapter, double-click it in the Stylesheet Editor, select Properties, then Font, select a color for Text, and click OK. Then click Save All.
Do the same color setting for plain h1. You'll use the plain h1 for the TOC, glossary, andd Index.
- To use h1.chapter, display the styles window: Home > Style Window.
- Go to each chapter, delete the existing chapter text, enter something like Installing for ch. 1, Configuring for ch. 3, and Running for ch.3. Apply h1.chapter in the styles window to each of your chapter topics. You'll notice that all chapters are numbered 1; they'll increment properly when this project is built.
- Name the two appendixes System Requirements and Troubleshooting. Set up an h1 for those appendixes: go to Styles.css, select h1, click Add Selector, and specify appendix.
- Double-click h1.appendix in the Styles Editor, set your chosen color for these h1s, and in the Auto-number tab, under format enter GH:Appendix {A+}:, and then Save All.
Build the TOC
The next big step is to build the TOC:
- Click Project > Master TOC, delete this stuff in the TOC:
and then drag the items from Content Explorer into the TOC so that it looks like this:
- Now to set chapter and page numbering for chapter 1: right-click on whatever you have for chapter 1 in the Master TOC, click the Printed Output tab, in the Chapter/Page Layout Break area under Break Type select Chapter Break, in the Page Number area, click Reset, specify 1, and select decimal (1, 2, 3). Next, click the Auto-numbers tab, and click Reset, specify 1, and select decimal (1, 2, 3), and click OK.
- For the other two chapters, right-click on those chapters in the Master TOC, click the Printed Output tab, in the Chapter/Page Layout Break area,under Break Type select Chapter Break, leave Increment number set, and select decimal (1, 2, 3). Next, click the Auto-numbers tab, leave Increment number selected in the Chapter Number area, again select decimal (1, 2, 3), and click OK.
- Do the same for the appendixes, glossary, and index. By leaving every chapter, appendix and section set at "increment, the page numbers in the book will start at 1 with chapter 1 and increment straight through to the last page of the index.
- It's time to do an interim build! The first step is to click View > Project Organizer.
- Right-click on Target (left side), and click Add Target. In the Output Type drop-down menu, select PDF and click Add.
- Click Project > Build Primary > Build "XHTML Book 7".
- When the build completes, click View Primary > View "XHTML Book 7".
Your output should resemble this, Although the page numbers need work:
Set Page Size and Page Layouts
As you have probably noticed, print books traditionally use a two-column format for glossaries and indexes. Also, few print books use 8.5 x 11 page size. We'll set all this up in this page-layout phase. Let's use 7.5in x 9.0in page size.
- In Content Explorer of your project, click Resources > PageLayouts, then double-click to open Default.flpgl.
- Click the Page Properties icon
and set the custom width and height so that they look like this:
This will cause all current and future page sizes in your project to be 7.5in x 9.0in!
Now for the index and glossary page layouts:
- In Content Explorer, right-click on PageLayouts (left panel), select IndexResizable.flpgl, give it a file name of index and Add. (Flare provides some header and footer material; we'll get to that in a bit.)
- For the glossary page layout, right-click on PageLayouts again, select GlosssaryResizable.flpgl, give it a file name of glossary and Add. Flare provides some header and footer material; we'll get to that in a bit.
Set Up Headers and Footers
Add Glossary and Index Entries
Related Information
Specifying Page Size and Orientation. This one cites an interface element that I cannot find.
How to Insert a Page Number Into a Frame
Creating a Title Page for PDF Output in MadCap Flare. Laura Charles Johnson | January 27, 2020
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