Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

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HowardNH
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Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by HowardNH »

Hi,

I am new to Mellel. I have only been working with the software for a few days and I am VERY impressed by the feature set.

I am writing a book where I want to have different headers on different pages. I have read the Mellel documentation, the Beginner's Guide, worked with the software and watched the tutorials on the website. BTW, the auto-titles video does not have sound.

I have created a 2 row by 2 column table in the header. I want to use the second row with merged cells for the header text. I will use the top "corners" for page number and user information.

I have renamed the Title Flows list and checked boxes for Prompting for Title and TOC inclusion (attachment #1 below).

I place the cursor in the bottom (merged 2 cell) row of the table.

I type the header text and then click on the Titles Flow list entry where I want it to go, in this case under Book Title.

At this point, I am NOT prompted for the title string. Instead I get this text <#???#> inserted (attachment #2 below).

I think this is where my problem is.

I am prompted for the title OUTSIDE of the header table. Is that the problem?

When I get into the body of the document and try to Insert TOC, it says there are no Auto-titles in the document.

Throughout the documentation, I didn't see any mention of the <#???#> text. What I am experiencing is not what is instructed on the videos especially as it regards being prompted for the title.

I am stuck at this point. I am certain I am missing a simple step in here. I would appreciate some help in resolving my confusion.

Many thanks,

Howard
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rpcameron
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Re: Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by rpcameron »

If you're putting Auto-Titles in the header/footer, they are referred to as "mentions", and formatted in the "Mentions" table of the "Edit Title Flows" dialog. They reference the Auto-Title that appears in the body of the page.

If you have static text that you would like to have in the header/footer, but that varies by section, a better option would be to use page styles to define your header/footer, and use page style breaks between sections.

(And I may not be remembering correctly, but I do not believe that Auto-Titles—either the Auto-Title itself or a mention—can be placed in a table cell. I may be incorrect on this point, though.)
— Robert Cameron
HowardNH
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Re: Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by HowardNH »

Thank you Patrick.

It looks like I added some unneeded complexity.

I will drop the table in the header and go with page styles and changing static headers as that seems to best suit my need.

Thanks again for placing me on the correct path...

Howard
HowardNH
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Re: Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by HowardNH »

Hmmm,

I was just thinking... without Auto-Titles and mentions being pulled from the text of the page into the header, is there a way I can automatically build a Table of Contents from the header contents?

If not, I guess I can create a page style for a TOC and drop the headers and page numbers in manually. I can live with that.

Thanks,

Howard
nicka
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Re: Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by nicka »

You could do that, but you'd be missing out on some of the best things about Mellel. Can you explain what it is that you want to achieve? Then maybe the community here can suggest a way to do it with auto-titles.
HowardNH
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Re: Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by HowardNH »

Thank you Nica for your interest and inquiry.

I am building a 96 page book that has 18 to 20 different page headers. Several of those repeat on intervening pages.

The book I am building is something like a dictionary. It is reference content. It is not a heading/paragraph type of text so it really doesn't lend itself well to flagging text in the document body for the auto-titles or mentions.

There are probably a few pages where I can write the text such that I can then flag text from the page as an auto-title, but on over 60 pages I cannot, not does it make sense.

I would be pleased if there were a way to use the text flagged in headers as the auto-title text and the edit it in the TOC.
It is these headings that I am most interested in for the TOC. From what I understand that is not possible.

WHAT IF ????

If I remember correctly, the documentation mentioned that auto-titles were maintained in a separate file.

Can I create the auto-titles file that is used as input to the TOC using the 20 headers I need? And then just input them using the Insert Table of Contents?

Any thoughts and ideas are welcome.

Sometimes you have to fool software into doing what you want. Would this approach work?

Thanks again for asking!

- Howard
johnny366
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Re: Newbie help needed with Auto-Titles

Post by johnny366 »

Hi everyone,
I'm also having trouble including dynamic text in my header and footer. There are two problems:

I want to have Document Title on the left, and Auto title Level 1 (the chapter title) in each header, eg:
| Everything you ever wanted to know––––––––––––<right tab>––––––––––––––––Chapter 1: Introduction |
I can insert it, and it works throughout the Page Style section. Which is great. Only thing is I cant make it right aligned against the Tab. It wraps on to a new line, like this:
| Everything you ever wanted to know
Chapter 1: Introduction |
I have messed for hours with the tabs in the Header Paragraph style, the Page Style headerbox and the Mention format, and I'm stumped. ANy suggestions?

Problem 2:

Can I place a Flow title in the header? Previous posts suggest I can, and if not, why can I format for Mentions? I have tried but all the options are grey in the Insert> Auto-title menu. Perhaps it is to do with the place in the hierarchy? I have a flow title called "Intro Headers" and it is just below my Chapter level (Level 1) in the flow list.
I want to do this, because my intro pages (Preface, TOC etc) have headings which I have added as Flow titles, so they dont appear in the TOC. I'd like to have these in the Header, as in the Chapters that follow. If there is another way I'd sure like to know it.
I hope that's clear.
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