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Importing Topics

You can import individual XHTML files (such as those from another Flare project).

How to import a topic

1. Do one of the following:

   • In the local toolbar of the Content Explorer, click .

     OR

   • In the Content Explorer, right-click on the Content folder and select Add Topic. 

     OR

   • Select Project>Add Topic. 
2. Complete the options in the Add New Topic dialog:

   1. Next to the Source File field, click . The Open dialog displays.
   2. In the Open dialog, navigate to the XHTML file that you want to import. Then select it and click Open. The Source File field now contains the path to the file that you are importing. Also, the name of the file is displayed in the File Name field.
   3. (Optional) If you want to place the topic in a subfolder that you previously created in the Content Explorer, click the drop-down arrow in the Folder field and select the subfolder. Otherwise, leave the selection as "(root folder)." For more information about creating subfolders to organize your topics, see Organizing Topics in the Content Explorer.
   4. (Optional) If you want to give the topic a different name than that for the imported file, click in the File name field and enter the text.
   5. (Optional) If you want the heading for the topic to use the same text that you provide for the file name, leave the 1st Heading field blank. Otherwise, enter the text that you want to use for the heading in the topic.
   6. (Optional) If you want the heading for the topic to use the default <h1> style, leave the Style field blank. Otherwise, select a style to apply to the heading in the topic.
   7. (Optional) In the Stylesheet field, select a style sheet to apply to the new topic. If you do not have a style sheet in your project, this field remains blank.

3. Click Add.

   The Copy to Project dialog opens, displaying information about the file that will be copied to the project. Also, if that file contains links to other files, they will also be listed (and therefore copied).

4. Click OK. The topic is added and opens in the XML Editor.

5. Now simply click inside the topic page in the XML Editor and start typing text or adding any other elements (e.g., tables, images, cross-references, multimedia) appropriate for the topic.

   It is also likely that you will want to apply formatting styles to the topic at this point (see Making It Look Good).

Note: If you want to import a plain HTML file, you can manually copy and paste the file into your project's "Content" folder in Windows. Then when you attempt to open the file from inside Flare, you are asked if you want to convert it to XML. After you click Yes, the Convert to XML Wizard opens. You can then click Convert, and the file will be converted and will open in the XML Editor.

Note: In addition to importing single files from another location (which this topic discusses), you can import linked files from a Flare source project using a featured called "Global Project Linking." This is different than a simple import process, because in this case, the imported files remain linked to the source project. This allows you to make future updates to those files in just one place—in the source project file. When you perform ongoing imports using your previous settings, Flare recognizes changes to the source files. Therefore, the new files can be brought over, replacing the outdated files. See Global Project Linking—Importing Files from Other Projects.

See Also

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