Update Glossary Links
The final step in using glossaries is glossary markup, or updating glossary links. You can update glossary links from the Glossary Editor, the Library, or the Outline Editor.
When you update glossary links from the Glossary Editor, all documents to which the open glossary is assigned are updated.
When you update glossary links from the Library or Outline Editor, the selection and its related documents are included by default. Clicking the View related documents link displays a list of the related documents. For this process, related documents are defined as all searchable documents that are directly or indirectly linked as children of the selection. For example, if you select a section that has topics and each of the topics has a web page linked as its concept, choosing to search related documents searches the section, the topics, and the web pages linked to the topics. Templates and package contents are not included in this operation.
From the Library, you must have at least one document selected or the tool is disabled. If nothing is selected in the Outline Editor, the entire outline is searched; this is equivalent to selecting the root of the outline.
The documents that are included in glossary markup from the Library and Outline Editor do not all have to have the same assigned glossary, but each one must have an assigned glossary to be updated. The appropriate glossary is applied to each document, regardless of the glossary used to update any document to which it is related.
During glossary markup, the Developer searches the text in your content for occurrences of glossary terms. When it finds a term that matches the selected markup conditions (match whole word and match case), it creates a link to the attachment specified as the definition link. By default, when a glossary term appears multiple times in one location, only the first instance of the term is marked as a glossary link. You can also change the glossary default settings to have all occurrences of all terms marked as glossary links.
If you later make any changes to a glossary, to glossary assignments, or to text containing glossary terms, you must update the links again.
Glossary markup affects text in frame bubbles in topics, including Introduction and End frames, and text in web pages. However, if a glossary term is included in the text of a manually created bubble text link or web page hyperlink, no additional glossary link is created during glossary markup. That is, text used in manually created links is skipped during glossary markup. For example, suppose that a frame bubble in a topic contains the text "Save this file to your local disk." and you create a link from the phrase "local disk" to a web page attachment. Further suppose that the glossary assigned to this topic contains the term "disk" with a different attachment as its definition link. If you then update the glossary links for the topic, the original link to the web page is left intact, and no glossary link is created from the word "disk" to the definition link attachment.
Note that document names, package files, and templates are all excluded from glossary markup.
Note also that glossary markup does not create recursive links. Therefore, if a web page that is used as the definition link for a term includes text containing the same term, no glossary link is created, so that the web page is not linked to itself by glossary markup.
Once created, a glossary link functions just like any other link to an attachment, such as a hyperlink inserted in a web page. Therefore, you can edit or remove the link, if desired. However, any changes that you make to a glossary link apply only to that link and do not affect the entry for the glossary term in the glossary document. In addition, if you later update glossary links again, the text used in a manually edited glossary link is excluded from glossary markup and is not overwritten with a new glossary link.
Multi-user Considerations
For changes to be made to a document using this tool, the document must be checked out. If you plan to use this tool offline, you should check out all affected documents before going offline.
When you execute this process, the Developer searches through all of the documents in the selection, regardless of their check in/out state. If a change is necessary and the document is not checked out and if you are working online, the Developer automatically checks the document out to you and makes the change. If the document cannot be checked out, for example, if it is open in another editor or checked out to another user or you are working offline, it is skipped. At the end of the process, a summary message appears with a link to an activity log. Clicking the View activity log link in the message displays a list of the documents that were checked out to you during the process and those that could not be checked out. After you save any changes, you should check in the documents to make them available to other authors and add the changes to the Developer's version control system.
To update glossary links, you do not need to check out the glossary, only the parent document(s). In addition, you can update links with a glossary even if it is checked out to another user. However, the glossary markup in this case will not reflect any changes made to the glossary after it was checked out.
When you are working offline, you can update glossary links only if the glossary is available in your local cache. Therefore, if you plan to work offline, you should ensure that you have an up-to-date local copy of any glossary you plan to use. To do this, you can either check out or get the glossary, depending on whether you plan to edit it or to have access to a read-only copy. If you go offline and do not have a copy of a glossary in your local cache, you will be unable to update glossary links for any documents to which it is assigned as you work offline. To remedy this, you need to go back online and get the documents that you need.
To update glossary links from the Glossary Editor:
- Open the glossary document, if necessary.
- On the Edit menu, choose Update Glossary Links.
If you have unsaved changes in the glossary, you can also choose Save and Update from the File menu to save your changes and update glossary links in one step.
The Developer searches all documents to which the glossary is assigned and updates links for glossary terms found in those documents.
To update glossary links from the Library or Outline Editor:
- Select the document(s) for which you want to update glossary links.
You can select multiple documents using the standard Windows selection keys (CTRL+click and SHIFT+click). If you do not select a document in the Outline Editor, the entire outline is updated.
- On the Edit menu, choose Update Glossary Links.
The Developer searches all selected documents and their directly related children and updates links for glossary terms found in those documents to which a glossary is assigned.