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I'm particularly interested in your point about breadcrumbs; as in how useful are they for navigation in general... and in my case, where topics include a search bar and a row of menus in the top nav header, whether breadcrumbs are the least useful of those 3 navigational tools.
In my headers for PDF output, I just included the chapter number and title (for example: Chapter 2: Planning Sessions), to give users some idea of context whenever they are looking at a particular page; and a colored hairline horizontal rule underneath that runs across the page width. Since Flare doesn't provide a chapter title header variable, as a workaround, I created a different page layout for each chapter (which comprise left and right pages), and typed the text into the header frame; then I used Break Type settings in the pdf TOC to apply the correct page layouts to content for different chapters.
Footers contain just the page number (centered) and a horizontal rule along the top.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Martinek, Carla
Sent: September-12-16 1:12 PM
To: TECHWR-L Writing <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: Info in Headers and Footers
If designing a template from scratch, what would you put in the headers and footers?
Consider that your documentation is distributed to users via PDF at this time.
1. What information do you really *need* in the headers and footers.
2. Do the users need "breadcrumbs" (e.g. chapter title, current topic title, etc.) in the header? (Consider they have bookmarks in the left column.)
3. Consider that the headers might be on a page that is neither left- or right-handed, but rather agnostic on pagination, because a user may only print a couple of pages, not the entire manual or even an entire chapter.
We're redesigning our templates, and looking for some good examples. IMO, I think less is better these days, even in a PDF. Feel free to share links to examples you like.
-Carla
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