Topic Layout Manager
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When using the Topic Layout Manager, you are creating the way the topic will look. Note however, that its page layout is obtained by the chapter that it will be in (see the section on Chapter Layout Manager). So, the only thing you might have in a topic layout would be to set up any static text that will be printed each time this topic layout is printed, such as a heading. Like with chapter layouts, you can use tags to reference things like captions so that you can use the same topic layout for many topics, making it easier to change the look of all the topics in the report simply by making one change to the topic layout. Normally the comments you enter will be appended to the static text in the topic layout when printed. If you want to affect this, such as indenting or adding static text before and/or after your comments, then you can use the $comment tag to instruct the report builder where you really want the comment text to go (see the image below).

Caution: if you modify a layout, then any reports you have created earlier that use that layout will also take on those changes. The Topic Layout Manager will warn you whether a topic layout is being used in a report or not, so use your best judgment when modifying a layout in those cases. As you can see in the image below, there are several areas displaying a caution indicating that this layout is used by seven reports. If you are making changes that will affect the look of the report, it might be a better idea to save the layout as a new layout, and change that one instead. This way, any reports that you have already completed will not be affected by your new changes. To make a copy, just click on the Save As button, and it will ask you for the new name; an exact copy of the current layout will be created for you to modify.


If a Layout is shown in red, this indicates that the item is a Whisper distributed item, and extra caution should be exercised before making any changes to it. The reason is that if Whisper were to update one of its own distributed layouts, and you wanted to incorporate those changes, you would lose any changes you personally made to the layout. Therefore, it is recommended that if you want to make any changes to any layouts in red, that you make a copy and then modify the copy instead.

If a Layout is shown in gray, this indicates that the layout has been marked as inactive (it was still used by one or more reports at the time it was deleted). If you attempt to delete an inactive layout, you will have the option of making it active once again if it is still in use; otherwise, you will be able to fully delete it.


Layout Functions:

New
Create a new topic layout.

Rename
Rename the selected layout (this will not affect any report layouts).

Delete
Delete the current layout. If the layout is in use by one or more reports, it will only be marked as inactive. Inactive views will appear gray in the Layout pull down.

Save As
Creates an exact copy of the selected layout. Useful if you wanted to create a similar looking layout, perhaps just wanting to create a topic that is the basically the same but some of the static text might be sightly different.

Always Start On New Page
By default, when a topic is encountered during report generation it continues on the same page as the previous topic. However, you might prefer to have every new topic always begin on a new page; if so, simply check this option.

Field Entry Style Form
Enables or disables field entry mode for any topics that use this layout. For more information on creating forms which use this field entry style as opposed to the default free form entry style, please see the chapter on Form Creation.