Project: Author

[El Condoro]

I got to page 25 of this thread before I lost patience and jumped to the end!

Firstly, this is an awesome extension - it makes creating a Reference Manual so easy! Great work.

What I am wondering is, can a single group of story entries be exported from a campaign? I can create a full RM easily and it's a thing of beauty. I want to create a player's RM that only incorporates a subset of the full RM - one group in the campaign story entries. Can that be done and how? Cheers.

[damned]

I am brand new to using Author and am trying to steer away from using notepadd++ to design my modules. I am a bit confused as to how to design a reference manual using author. I found one brief tutorial video for author but it wasn't enough to help me fully understand this extension. Do any of you know of any guides detailing how to make ref pages? I know how to make chapters and subchapters but am unsure how to organize pages to have pictures and fancy framing. I see there is a "frame" option in the fresh story window that allows me to select a frame type but when I click an option I don't see anything. Is there a way I can preview my work as I go?

Export the module and load/unload to preview progress.

[Zacchaeus]

Basically you create everything in stories and when you export select All and the extension will create the ref manual for you.

You can select a frame for either the whole thing or for each individual page - or no frame at all. You can't select a frame for just a paragraph of text. Only once it is exported will you see the frame and how it looks.

For images it just takes the link from the story entry and adds that image into the page in the ref manual. You don't have any other control (like whether it is left or right etc) so the image will appear in the centre of the page corresponding to the position of the link. Make sure that the link doesn't contain any formatted text and that it is the only link (if you have a series of links then the image won't get added to the page).

Apart from these gotcha's it's a pretty easy tool to use.

[Zacchaeus]

Drag the story entries you want to export into the export window instead of ticking the story checkbox (I think).

[El Condoro]

Yeah, I thought about trying that but the group name is the first chapter (category) and that will be missing. If all else fails, I'll open the exported module in a new campaign, copy the story entries across and set the groups, chapters etc and then export that. It'll work - I just wondered if there was already a way to export part of a campaign.

[Edit] Tried it and the dragged individual story entries were exported but not the RM. When I tick on the RM option, ALL of the campaign is exported to it.

[celestian]

I got to page 25 of this thread before I lost patience and jumped to the end!

Firstly, this is an awesome extension - it makes creating a Reference Manual so easy! Great work.

What I am wondering is, can a single group of story entries be exported from a campaign? I can create a full RM easily and it's a thing of beauty. I want to create a player's RM that only incorporates a subset of the full RM - one group in the campaign story entries. Can that be done and how? Cheers.

If I am reading this right you want to make a Player ref-manual. You certainly can do that but keep in mind that Author exports ALL story entries and builds a ref-man from that. To do what you want you need a campaign that is Player ref-man contents and another for the DM.

I've done this myself for S4 as it contains new spells/etc and players would want to see those. You'll have 2 modules, one you'll flag as Player so they can load that module.

[El Condoro]

Thanks, that's what I thought. It's not difficult and the output from your extesnsion is great. Thanks again for the work you have put into it. Cheers.

[damned]

Export the whole thing.
Open the module in a new campaign and drag/copy the player content into your new campaign and Author export it again

[SailorLovins]

Thank you all for the replies and thank you admin for moving this to the correct forum. I am still unclear as to how to make a "ref page" with multiple framed items and pictures. How does author know that I am trying to make a page with multiple sidebar text blocks? Is it possible to make a block where an image appears to the side of text such as with image text blocks? I try to format my ref manuals to appear as closely similar in appearance as the author's original sourcebook, within reason of course. I absolutely love this extension.

[celestian]

Thank you all for the replies and thank you admin for moving this to the correct forum. I am still unclear as to how to make a "ref page" with multiple framed items and pictures. How does author know that I am trying to make a page with multiple sidebar text blocks? Is it possible to make a block where an image appears to the side of text such as with image text blocks? I try to format my ref manuals to appear as closely similar in appearance as the author's original sourcebook, within reason of course. I absolutely love this extension.

Author only allows one frame per page and side bar text/etc is not supported. Those options are more complex and would require markup language which I'm not keen to add.

In short, outside of some image insertion the text will be limited to how they appear in Story entries.