Hello,
I’m writing a system documentation that is partly for the customer and partly for our support staff.
Is it possible that in the same source (.odt) keep all the documentation, but create an output (.pdf) where some parts are suppressed?
There are parts that the support staff needs but I don’t want the customer to have…
// Anders
If the “parts” are interspersed all over the document, you need to have Hidden Paragraphs and/or Hidden Text (inside a paragraph) fields controlled by a conditional variable.
This is quite tricky, needs some preparatory work but is extremely powerful. You set the variable to some value and your text adapts accordingly. You can have as many “versions” as you need simply by changing the variable value. It could also be easier to use several variables in case you have sub-versions.
Another possibility, provided your document is very consistently styled, i.e. absolutely no direct formatting is to change the template upon which you base your document. Some styles receive property Hidden if the corresponding paragraph should be skipped in this version. This approach also allows you to layout differently your versions, e.g. standard portrait for customers, landscape with additional comments or e-book for staff. You are only limited by your imagination.
This is more like I expected.
Now I have more than one way, I will do some thinking and testing
Thank you very much!
// Anders
You can specify which pages you want to export at File > Export As > Export as pdf..., at “Range”.
Tip: If the parts customer and support are cleanly separated, it is also possible to separate these parts as two ODTs.
However, they can be combined in a master document.
Master documents in Writer
Thanks for the swift answer.
I will have to think about how to organize the document(s)
If you are reorganizing, please remember not to use direct formatting, but to format using styles. It’s a little more work at first, but it definitely pays off for larger documents.
Professional text composition with Writer
Good luck!
