ClickHelp User Manual

Share Content Among Topics

In ClickHelp, you can reuse the existing content by including the content of one topic into another topic. It is extremely useful for such elements like footers, headers, and disclaimer blocks. The elements that pull the contents from another topic are called Snippets.

In this context, there are two new notions to learn:
Target topic - this is the acceptor of the snippet content, the topic to which the content will be inserted;
Source topic - this is the original source of the content, the topic content from which will be inserted.

Inserting a snippet is simple:

  • While you are in the topic editing mode, position the text cursor at the point where you want to insert a snippet.
  • Switch to the Insert tab and click Insert Snippet in the Single-Sourcing group.
  • Start typing the title of the source topic in the Select a topic field — the dropdown box will show the matching topics.
  • Select the topic you need, and click OK.

In the editing mode, the snippet will have a limited height, but when you click Unlock & View to switch to the reading mode, the snippet content will be fully integrated into the target topic.

While you are creating content in your project, the link between the source and the target topics will be maintained. This means that any changes you make to the source topic will be reflected in all target topics. Once you publish your project to make it accessible to readers, the entire HTML code of the source topic will become a part of the target topic body - no link will exist between the topics in the final output (publication).