By default, topics with TOC entries are created in the Topics folder in the Topic Files section. It is advisable to create additional folders for topic files without TOC entries to keep them separate. Follow the instructions below to create folders for your topic files.

1.Select Topic Files in the Project Files section of the Project Explorer, then select the folder where you want to create your new topic file.

2.Select Add File > Add New File in Project > Manage Topics.

3.This displays the Insert New Topic dialog in file mode:

4.You can create multiple topic files with this dialog. Type one or more names for the topic files you want to create, one name per line. See Insert New Topic for details on the options available here (template, class etc).

5.Click on OK to create the new topic file(s).

The file names and topic IDs for the new files will be generated automatically from the names you enter. Spaces in your names will be converted to underscore characters.

All your topic files are stored in the Topic Files section of your project, including the topic files with TOC entries that you create in the TOC (which is really a list of links to the files). By default, files with TOC entries are stored in a folder called Topics. It is advisable to create additional folders for your files without TOC entries to keep them separate from the TOC topic files.

1.Select Topic Files in the Project Files section of the Project Explorer.

2.Select Add File > Add New Folder in Project > Manage Topics.

3.Enter a name for the new folder and click on OK.

You can also access the Add File/Folder options by right-clicking in the Topic Files section.

You can use conditional output include options for topic files in the same way that you can for TOC entries to include or exclude the topic files from your output when you publish. For more details on using include options see Conditions and Customized Output.

•Select the file you want to apply include options to in the Explorer and select Change > Include in Builds in Project > Manage Topics, then select the options you want to apply.

•Alternatively you can also right-click on the file to edit its include options.

Excluding the source files of snippets:

You should always exclude the source files for snippets (both linked and pasted) from your output using include options. Since the snippets are just copied from the source files you don't want to include the source files themselves in your published output – if you did the user would be able to find them with search, which is not what you want.

Sometimes you may decide that you would like to add a TOC entry to a topic file that does not yet have one. Or you want to add an additional TOC entry for a topic that already has one. You can do this with the TOC Link option in the New Topic dialog.

Method 1: Dragging topic files into the TOC

Dragging a topic file into the TOC from the Topic Files section will also create a new TOC entry for that topic file. It doesn't move anything. It just creates a new TOC entry. You can also do this with multiple files. Use SHIFT+Click and CTRL+Click to select multiple files, then drag them into the TOC.

Method 2: Creating a new TOC entry as a copy of an existing entry

You can also create a new TOC entry for a topic that already has a TOC entry by holding down the SHIFT+CTRL keys and dragging the original TOC entry with the mouse to the position where you want to insert the copy. Instead of moving the original entry this will then create a new TOC entry pointing to the same topic. This only works for topics that already have TOC entries, of course.

Method 3: Use the TOC Link tool

The TOC Link tool in the Insert New Topic dialog creates a new TOC entry for a topic file. Note that topics can have more than on entry in the TOC, because TOC entries are really just links pointing to topic files. They are not part of the topic.

Tip – locating the topic ID:
You can find the ID of any topic by selecting Topic Options to the left of the editor window and checking the Topic ID: field there.

1.Click in the TOC where you want to insert the new entry and select the Add Topic tool in Project > Manage Topics.

2.Select TOC Link on the left and click on Link to Topic in this Project.

3.Select the  topic ID of the topic you want to link to in the Target Topic: list. You can optionally also select an anchor to scroll to in the Topic Anchor: field if the target topic contains anchors.

4.Click on OK to insert the link.

See Multiple TOC entries for one topic for more details on this subject.

You can delete a topic's TOC entry without deleting the topic file. This turns a TOC topic into a topic without a TOC entry.

1.Select the topic in the TOC (you can also use Ctrl+Click and Shift+Click to select multiple topics).

2.Press DEL or right-click and select Delete Topic.

3.In the dialog displayed deselect the Also delete referred topic files option and click on Delete Topics.

If your programmer can generate a "map" file containing a list of the topic IDs and context numbers you can automatically generate any missing topics with the Context Tool in the Project tab. See Auto-generating topic files for details.