Previewing Topics

As you are working on a topic, it is likely that you will want to know what it will look like in the final output, as well as test navigation links and condition tags. There are two ways to do this. First, you could build the output and then view the output. However, this requires you to perform multiple steps and wait for the entire target to generate. A quicker way to see how a topic looks in the output is to preview just that topic by opening it in a preview window. The following steps show you how to do this.

The way the topic is previewed depends on the type of output format used as the primary target. If your primary target uses…

Open the topic that you want to preview.

In the local toolbar of the XML Editor, click

. The Preview dialog opens, displaying the topic.

Show me…

To test any of your condition tags, do the following:

In the Preview dialog, click the down arrow to the right of the Include Expression and Exclude Expression fields. More…
A window opens, showing the condition tags in your project.
Next to each condition tag, select either the Include or Exclude check box, depending on whether you want the content with the corresponding tag to be seen in the output. More…
As you make your selections, the area at the bottom of the window indicates which tags will be seen in the output.
At the bottom of the Condition Tag Expression window, click OK. More…
The Preview dialog now shows only the content with the condition tags that you have included. Also, the Include Expression and Exclude Expression fields now indicate which tags have been included in the output or excluded from it.

Click the X in the top-right corner of the Preview dialog to close it.

Note: The preview feature is useful because it is a quick way to see how a topic looks in the output. However, there may be times when you need to generate the entire target and test the output. For example, you might want to click hyperlinks or verify cross-references. See Testing Output.