Publish

Paligo makes it easy to publish your content to many different output formats, such as PDF (print), HTML, online help, Mobile / HTML5, MS Word, help desk portals (Zendesk, Freshdesk, Salesforce Knowledge), SCORM (for LMS eLearning systems). More formats are available on request, such as JavaHelp, manpages, HTML5 slides.

A layout contains settings that tell Paligo how to process and style your content for publishing. Available layouts (both built-in and custom layouts created in your Paligo instance) are shown when you choose type of output, see Layouts.

If your content contains:

Filtering / Profiling, use the Profiling attributes section to tell Paligo which content to include.

For example, if you have used an output format filter, you could mark up some content to have a PDF value and other content to have an HTML value. In the publishing settings, if you set the Output Format to PDF, it will include the content that is filtered as outputformat:PDF. Paligo will then exclude any content that is filtered as outputformat:HTML filter (or any value other than PDF).
Variables - Use the Variables section to choose which variants to be published.

Note

There are a number of built-in layouts for each output format. You can customize them just as you please using the Layout Editor. If that is not enough, you can also purchase customizations from Paligo, in which case there are very few limitations to the output you can get.

What Happens When You Publish?

When you choose to publish a publication or topic, Paligo generates an output, such as an HTML5 Help Center or a PDF. To generate the output, Paligo performs a "transformation", where it:

Looks at the type of Layout to find out which type of output to create
Looks at the settings in the Layout to find out which settings and features it should apply
Looks at the publishing settings to find out what languages, filters, variables and other settings to use
Detects any attributes that are set for elements in your content. These tell Paligo to apply certain properties in the output, for example, Paligo can use the role attribute to create a matching class name in an HTML5 output.
Creates an output file that downloads in your browser (and is published to another system, if you publish to an integration, such as Zendesk)

In Paligo, the content and styling is separate. When you publish, you only need to configure the Layout settings and choose the publication settings. Paligo takes care of the actual "transformation" into HTML5, PDF, and other formats.

Note

For styling your output, use the Layout settings. For HTML5 outputs, you can also attach a CSS style sheet to your Layout. Paligo includes this in the output, so that the browser can see the CSS and apply those styling rules in the browser. To create your CSS, you need to create styles and rules that apply to the HTML output, not the XML content in Paligo.

For details, see Style with CSS.

To learn about choosing a Layout, see publishing process.

To learn how to make changes to a Layout's settings, see Edit a Layout.

General Publishing Process

You can publish entire publications or individual topics. Whether you are publishing to PDF, HTML or another format, the steps you need to take are the same.

Important

Before you publish, make sure to change the status for the publication to Released. This will create a snapshot of the version that is to be published. Read more about the Release Process.

Select the Dotted menu (...) for the topic or publication in Content Manager.
Select Publish.

Paligo displays the Publish document dialog.
Select the Type of output you want to publish (PDF, HTML, HTML5, Word, XML, eLearning or SCORM).
Select the Layout to be used for your output.
Select the checkboxes in front of the languages to be published.

Note

If no translations are available, only the Source Language will show. If you have multiple languages translated and approved, you can select which ones to include. Paligo will publish each language as a separate output.

For PDF output you can publish them as one multilingual publication, check the Combine selected languages box.
Select Edit in the Profiling attributes section to apply Filtering / Profiling. Leave the fields blank for the filters not to be applied.

If you do not want to use filters, ignore this step and continue from the next step.
Select OK to add the selected profiling attribute.
Select Edit in the Variables section to apply Variables. Leave the fields blank for the variables not to be applied.

If you do not want to use variables, ignore this step and continue from the next step.
Select OK to add the selected variables.
Use the Upload output section to set Paligo to publish directly to an integration, such as Github or FTP. For details on these settings, see Integrations.
Use the Output filename section to control the filename.

By default, Paligo will use the filename syntax that is defined in the System Settings.

To change the information included in the filename, enter your preferred format in the publishing settings. Default is: ID-Title-Format.
You can use:
- ID - The ID of the document.
- Title - The title of the publication or topic that you are publishing.
- Format - The name of the output format, for example, PDF or HTML5.
- Edit date - The date that the publication or topic was last edited.
- Branch label - The text from the branch label for the publication or topic. This only applies if your content has been branched and it has a branch label. For details, see Add or Edit Branch Labels.
- Unique value - A random string of characters, generated by Paligo, that is added to the filename to make it unique. This can stop the file from being overwritten by later publishes of the same document.
Tip

If you type @ into the field, Paligo displays a list of the available values and you can select from the list. To remove a value, click in it and use the delete key or backspace key to remove all of its characters.

Note

The filename shown in the top-right corner is a preview of the filename that Paligo will use when you publish.
Set the Optional Parameters (leave unchecked if you do not want these features):
- Save the output in Paligo - Check the box to save the zip file the in the Resource View. Clear the box if you want Paligo to only download the published output file in your browser.
  
  If you chose to save the output in Paligo, you can download the zip file from the Resource Detail Panel for the publication or topic and then download the zip file from the Saved Outputs tab.
- Email me - Check this box if you want Paligo to send you an email when the publication is ready. This is useful if you have very large publications that can take a longer time to process and publish.
- Make debug build - Check this box if you want Paligo to include a log file and link report. If there is an issue with your content, Paligo support may ask you to enable this feature so that they can use the log files to investigate.
Select Publish Document.

Paligo starts processing your content and applies your layout and publishing settings. The time that this takes can vary depending on how much content you are publishing (the more content there is, the longer it takes).

A progress bar shows you how much of the processing Paligo has completed and how much is left to do. When the processing is complete, a notification is shown.

The published output appears as:
- A zip file with the published output appears in the downloads folder on your computer.
  
  If you have altered your browser's settings to store downloaded files somewhere else, the zip file will be found there instead.
- A link in the Activity Feed Panel to download the published content.

Note

To make the content available online, first unzip the file. You can then use the file locally or you can use an FTP client, such as Filezilla, to upload the unzipped content to a web server.

Tip

You can save your publishing settings and reuse them to achieve a smoother publishing process, see Publishing Settings. Any settings you save can also be used for Batch Publishing.

Publishing Settings

You can store your preferred publication settings so that you do not have to enter them manually each time you want to publish. Once you have saved the settings, you can select them from the Saved Settings tab, and Paligo will automatically apply them to your publication. This is much quicker than applying each setting individually each time you publish.

To use saved publishing settings, you (or another user) must first enter some settings and Save Publishing Settings. Once they are saved, they are added to the Saved Settings tab (for the publication you are publishing, not all publications). From there, you can Apply Saved Publishing Settings by selecting the saved settings and then publishing.

Tip

Paligo also has a Copy Publishing Settings feature, which you can use to copy the saved settings from another publication. This can also save you time when you are publishing Paligo content.

Save Publishing Settings

By saving your publishing settings, you make the publishing process much quicker. For example, you can prepare which output type to be used, languages to be included, profiling attributes (filters) and Variables to be applied for a specific publication.

Tip

To use the saved settings in a different publication, see Copy Publishing Settings.

To create and save publishing settings:

Select the dotted menu (...) for the publication in the Content Manager and choose Publish.

The Publish Document dialog appears.
Apply the publishing settings you want to use.
Select the Save Settings in the lower left corner.
Enter a name for your collection.

Note

It is important to give the settings a meaningful name so that other users can easily understand what the settings are for.
Select OK.

Your choices for the publishing settings are now saved for this publication. You can Apply Saved Publishing Settings from the Saved settings tab when you publish this publication.
Close the Publish document dialog without publishing.

Apply Saved Publishing Settings

To save time when you publish content, you can apply saved publishing settings. These are a collection of settings made previously by you or another Paligo user.

Select the dotted menu (...) for the publication in the Content Manager and choose Publish.

The Publish Document dialog appears.
Select the Saved Settings tab.
Check the box for the publishing settings to be used.

Tip

If there are no saved settings that meet your requirements, you can Copy Publishing Settings. These are settings that have been used for publishing, but have not been saved by a user.
Select Publish Document.

Copy Publishing Settings

Instead of entering the publication settings manually each time you publish, you can copy saved settings from another publication. This can save you time and help avoid repeat work if you have many publications that need to use the same, or similar, publication settings.

To copy publishing settings from another publication:

Select the dotted menu (...) for the publication in the Content Manager and choose Publish.

The Publish Document dialog appears.
Select the Saved Settings tab.
Select Copy Setting in the lower left corner.

Paligo provides you with a list of saved publication settings from other publications.
Check the box in front of the publication setting that you want to copy.
Use the Reuse the selected setting checkbox to control how the copy is used.
Important

If you:
- Check the box - the copy will be a reused version of the original. Any changes you make to the copy will also be made to the original.
- Clear the box - the copy will be completely separate to the original. Any changes you make to the copy will not affect the original.
Select OK to make the copy. It is added to the list of Saved Settings.

Tip

The copy has a dotted menu (...) that provides options for renaming, editing and duplicating the copy.
To apply the copied publication settings, select its checkbox.
Select Publish document.

Example of when to copy settings

Example 1. Copy Publishing Settings from One Publication to Another

Let's say you have an "ACME 100 User Guide" and for that, you always use the same publishing settings. You have those settings saved, but the save is only available for the "ACME 100 User Guide".

You then create an "ACME 200 User Guide" and you want it to use the same publication settings as the "ACME 100 User Guide".

To do this, you go to publish the "ACME 200 User Guide" and copy the saved publication settings from the "ACME 100 User Guide".You can then apply the copied settings, rather than enter them all again manually. The copy settings are also added to the list of saved settings for the "ACME 200 User Guide", so you can access them from there in future.

Batch Publishing

Abstract

Batch publishing lets you publish multiple publications at the same time, with a single action.

Batch publishing lets you publish multiple publications at the same time, with a single action. It is more convenient than starting each publication process manually and is especially useful when you need to update many outputs at the same time.

For example, if you publish to Zendesk and want to update several categories at once. In this scenario, you can set up a publication for each category and then use batch publishing to publish to them all with a single click of a button.

To use batch publishing:

Save Publishing Settings for each publication that you want to include in the batch.
To open the Batch publish dialog either:
- Select your Avatar in the top right corner and choose Batch Publish.
- Select the Batch Publish icon on the Dashboard.
To the left - Batch publish option in the avatar menu. To the right - Batch publish icon on the Dashboard .
Check the boxes for the publications you want to include in the batch publish.

The Batch Publish dialog shows a list of all the saved publishing settings.

Note

Leave the checkboxes clear for publications that you do not want to publish.
Select Publish.

Paligo will publish each publication in turn, using the saved publication settings.

Publish Multiple Versions of Content

If you have documentation for multiple versions of a product, you can provide a dropdown menu for the users to switch between the versions. The feature will load the same page in another version, if it exists, otherwise redirecting to the home page of another version. Also, each version can have translations that the user can switch between in the HTML5 Help Center output.

To get a dropdown menu in your HTML5 Help Center output, each version must be published and their URL:s must be added to the used HTML5 layout.

Tip

Moogsoft is a wonderful example of how the version switcher can be used.

Note

Step 9 to 14 in the following instruction are required for the dropdown menu to swap between the exact pages. You can choose not to use them, but then the version swap will direct the user to the main page instead.

To use the version dropdown menu, you need to organize your output topics in a specific folder structure:

Create a separate folder for each version on your server.

Note

It does not matter what the root folder is called. But it needs to point to the folder where your documents are stored. The slash ("/") at the beginning of the path represents the root of your server.

Then add subfolders for each version.
Publish each version and place them in the dedicated folder structure.
Select the Layout tab in the top menu.

Paligo displays a list of Layouts. The list is empty if there are no custom Layouts in your Paligo instance.
Select the layout to be updated or Create a Layout.

Tip

You can copy the URL of the layout editor and paste it into a new tab in your browser. This can be useful if you frequently switch between your Paligo content and the layout settings.
Select Help Center Theme Options in the sidebar.
Scroll down to Versions for version dropdown.
Enter a text and URL for each version like this text:Version 5.1 (latest), url:/docs/index.html;.
Select General in the sidebar.
Scroll down to Use a short and flat URL structure for output files.
Select Disable.
Scroll down to Use output file names made from id and SEO name.
Select Disable.
Scroll down to Ajax load content.
Select Disable.
Select Save.

Broken Links Report

Paligo keeps track of all relations between files automatically, including link references. This prevents you from breaking links as you could on a file system by moving files around or renaming them.

But it is still possible to get broken links in a published output if you have links that point to content in other publications. This is because the target link is not included in the publication that you have published and these links will be broken.

Note

Paligo recommends that you always check for broken links before you Release Content.

To produce a link report:

Select the Dotted menu (...) for the publication you want to check.
Select Publish.
Make your publish settings.
Check the box Make debug build.
Select Publish document.
In the output folder, look in the tmp folder to find an HTML file that starts with "linkreport" and then the name of the publication.
Double-click to open the Link Report file in a browser. You will see something like this:

The report contains:
- The title of the topic containing the broken link(s), as well as its UUID and Resource ID.
- Buttons Edit and Find to either directly open and edit the topic or to locate it in the Resource View.
- A broken link reference if the reference is to another topic and it exists, then the UUID will be hyperlinked to locate the target topic directly.
  
  Note
  
  The attempt to locate the target topic is based on the link reference format. There is no guarantee it exists though. If for example the target topic has been deleted, then the link to try to locate it will not work.
Resolve the broken links.
Republish with a new link report to verify that no broken links remain.

Customize Output Filename

There are two ways to control the filename that Paligo generates for PDF and ZIP files:

If you are an Admin user, you can create an output filename template in the System Settings. Paligo will use this template by default for PDF and ZIP outputs. But users can choose a different filename structure when they publish.

To learn how to set up the default output filename format, see Set the Default Filename for PDF and ZIP Files.
If you are an Admin, Author, or Publisher, you can add a filename template when you publish. You do this on the Publish document dialog, in the Output filename section. Paligo will use the Publish document dialog settings instead of the system settings.

To learn how to set the output filename format in the publishing settings, see General Publishing Process.

Publish Your Content Online

There are several ways to publish your content online:

FTP client - You can use the FTP client that is built into MacOS finder or Windows File Explorer. Alternatively, you can use a dedicated FTP client application such as Filezilla.
SCP (secure copy) - You can use SCP to send files securely. This uses the SSH protocol for authentication and data transfer.
Upload interface - Some hosting applications have an upload interface that you can use to upload the files directly. For example, if you publish a SCORM output, you could publish it to Docebo LMS in this way. Docebo LMS has an interface for uploading content.

Typically, you will need to unzip the Paligo output first and then upload the content of the "out" folder. The files for publishing are always in the "out" folder.

In some cases, you can upload the zip file instead. This varies depending on the target environment for your content. To find out, refer to the target environment's documentation.

Note

Paligo has integrations that allow it to publish directly to other systems. For example, the Zendesk integration allows Paligo to publish directly to Zendesk. With these, you also get a zip file that downloads in the browser when you publish, but you do not need to upload it.

Publish to a Git Pipeline or Web Server

When you publish content, by default the output is downloaded in a zip file. There are several options for how to publish that content live to your end users.

Publish Manually to Your Web Server

The contents of the default zip download can be uploaded to any web server of your choice, for example via an FTP client. To do so, simply upload the contents of the out folder in the zip file to your server.

Publish to Amazon Web Services S3 (Amazon S3)

Paligo has Continuous Integration (CI) support for Amazon Web Services S3 (Amazon S3). This means you can create content in Paligo, such as PDFs or an HTML help center, and publish it to Amazon S3 so that it is instantly live to your end-users.

See Amazon S3 Integration for more on how to do this.

Publish to a BitBucket Pipeline

Paligo has Continuous Integration (CI) support for Bitbucket Cloud. This means you can create content in Paligo, such as PDFs or an HTML help center, and publish it to Bitbucket Cloud. When the content is uploaded to Bitbucket, you can unzip it (automatically if you so choose) to make it instantly available live to your end users.

See Bitbucket Integration for more on how to do this.

Publish to a GitHub Pipeline

Paligo has Continuous Integration (CI) support for GitHub. This means you can create content in Paligo, such as PDFs or an HTML help center, and publish it to GitHub. When the content is uploaded to GitHub, you can unzip it (automatically if you so choose) to make it instantly available live to your end users.

See GitHub Integration for more on how to do this.

Publish Directly to Your Web Server Via FTP

With the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) integration, you can publish your Paligo content, such as an HTML5 help center, directly to your web site.

See FTP Integration for more on how to do this.

Publish to Your Help Desk Portal

Paligo can publish content directly to help desk knowledge base portals, like Zendesk, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and more. To find more information about publishing to each of these, see the topics for each of them in the Integrations section, such as:

Note

This feature requires that you have integrated with one of the supported help desk portals, see Integrations.

Before publishing to your live help desk knowledge base, always test carefully! We recommend testing to a test trial account, or to a category that is marked as draft, so it's not visible to your end users until you know everything is working as you want it to.

Paligo will create articles in your help center on initial publish, and update them on subsequent publishing. But it will not delete any articles, should you remove topics that are on the level that become articles.

Publish to Other Output Formats

Besides the main output formats enabled by default, it is possible to publish to even more formats. Examples are HTML5 slide shows, JavaHelp, manpages (for command line help), etc.

If you need an additional output format, please contact support to see if it is already available and it can be enabled for you. Some formats can also be added as customizations (paid service).

Publish to an LMS

You can create content in Paligo and publish it to a Learning Management System (LMS). For details on how to create your course in Paligo and publish it to your LMS, see eLearning.

Publish to SCORM (Basic)

You can publish Paligo content as a SCORM output. SCORM is an interchange format for importing into Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and eLearning platforms.

Paligo's SCORM (basic) output is for publishing regular content to an LMS. It is available on all plans, but does not support progress tracking or interactive features such as quizzes.

Note

Paligo also has a more powerful SCORM output that supports progress tracking, quizzes, and more. It is currently in beta, so if you would like to use it, please contact customer support so they can enable it on your instance. it is available on the Enterprise plan and on trials.

The following instructions explain how to use the basic SCORM support. It covers publishing Paligo content to SCORM and then importing that content into an LMS. We have used the free LMS Moodle Sandbox environment as an example, but you can use a different LMS if you prefer.

Publish the publication you want to import into the LMS (such as Moodle).
Use a SCORM layout to publish a publication.

To learn how to create a SCORM layout, see Create a Layout.

For details on the SCORM layout settings, see SCORM Layout Editor Options.

To learn how to publish content, see General Publishing Process.
Unzip the published content.

Inside the zip file, in the out folder, there is another zip file. This is the one you will import.
Log into the Moodle sandbox using the supplied test login credentials "admin" / "sandbox".
Select Add an activity or resource. Select "SCORM package" in the dialog that pops up:
In the next view, Adding a new SCORM package, give it a name and description.
Drag and drop the zip file in the out folder of your published content. Then click Save and display.

Note

The SCORM output contains a simple Table of Contents (TOC). In Moodle, the TOC is auto-created, so you'll have duplicate TOCs. In such a case you would use CSS to hide the included TOC:
```
div.toc{
  display: none;
}
```
Other LMS systems do not auto-create the TOC, which is why one is included.

Note

The initial styling is quite basic and is provided by Moodle and also CSS that's included in the Paligo conversion. Whatever LMS you publish to, you will need a customization to make it look good.

Publish to MS Word

Normally in single-sourcing environments like Paligo, you would publish to PDF if you need documents for printing. But there may be situations where it is useful to publish to Microsoft Word instead of PDF. For example, if you want to create draft Word documents that can then be revised for other purposes.

Note

The MS Word output is designed for creating draft documents that you will publish and then further edit in Word. It is not a primary output in Paligo.

For printed documents, we recommend that you use PDF where possible. This is because there are more options and capabilities when publishing from Paligo to PDF.

To publish to MS Word:

Prepare your content in Paligo, making sure you add your topics to a publication.
Create an MS Word layout or edit an existing one.

For details, see Create a Layout and Edit a Layout.
Select the dotted menu (...) for the publication in the Content Manager and choose Select Publish.
- Make sure the layout has a suitable template in place. If you leave the template setting empty, Paligo will use the default MS Word template. To apply your own styling, you will need to download the template, edit it, and then upload it (see Style your MS Word Documents).
- Use the layout settings to enable or disable taxonomy features and scoped filtering for your MS Word output.
Select Save.
Select the Dotted menu (...) for the topic or publication in Content Manager.
Select Publish.

Paligo displays the Publish document dialog.
Select Word.
Select the MS Word layout that you want to use for publishing. This could be the Default Word layout or a custom MS layout that you have created.
Select the checkboxes in front of the languages to be published.

Note

If no translations are available, only the Source Language will show. If you have multiple languages translated and approved, you can select which ones to include. Paligo will publish each language as a separate output.

For PDF output you can publish them as one multilingual publication, check the Combine selected languages box.
Select Edit in the Profiling attributes section to apply Filtering / Profiling. Leave the fields blank for the filters not to be applied.

If you do not want to use filters, ignore this step and continue from the next step.
Select OK to add the selected profiling attribute.
Select Edit in the Variables section to apply Variables. Leave the fields blank for the variables not to be applied.

If you do not want to use variables, ignore this step and continue from the next step.
Select OK to add the selected variables.
Use the Upload output section to set Paligo to publish directly to an integration, such as Github or FTP. For details on these settings, see Integrations.
Use the Output filename section to control the filename.

By default, Paligo will use the filename syntax that is defined in the System Settings.

To change the information included in the filename, enter your preferred format in the publishing settings. Default is: ID-Title-Format.
You can use:
- ID - The ID of the document.
- Title - The title of the publication or topic that you are publishing.
- Format - The name of the output format, for example, PDF or HTML5.
- Edit date - The date that the publication or topic was last edited.
- Branch label - The text from the branch label for the publication or topic. This only applies if your content has been branched and it has a branch label. For details, see Add or Edit Branch Labels.
- Unique value - A random string of characters, generated by Paligo, that is added to the filename to make it unique. This can stop the file from being overwritten by later publishes of the same document.
Tip

If you type @ into the field, Paligo displays a list of the available values and you can select from the list. To remove a value, click in it and use the delete key or backspace key to remove all of its characters.

Note

The filename shown in the top-right corner is a preview of the filename that Paligo will use when you publish.
Set the Optional Parameters (leave unchecked if you do not want these features):
- Save the output in Paligo - Check the box to save the zip file the in the Resource View. Clear the box if you want Paligo to only download the published output file in your browser.
  
  If you chose to save the output in Paligo, you can download the zip file from the Resource Detail Panel for the publication or topic and then download the zip file from the Saved Outputs tab.
- Email me - Check this box if you want Paligo to send you an email when the publication is ready. This is useful if you have very large publications that can take a longer time to process and publish.
- Make debug build - Check this box if you want Paligo to include a log file and link report. If there is an issue with your content, Paligo support may ask you to enable this feature so that they can use the log files to investigate.
Select Publish Document to start publishing. Paligo will then process your content and apply your layout and publishing settings. The time that this takes can vary depending on how much content you are publishing (the more content there is, the longer it takes).

When the publishing process is finished, Paligo creates a zip file that downloads in your browser. If you are using a publishing integration, the zip file will also be sent to the relevant service.
Unzip the file and open the Word document to see the output.

When you open the output, Word will ask you if you want to update the fields in the document. Choose Yes as this updates the table of contents.

The Word document contains the content from Paligo. It uses the styles from the template that is set in your layout (or the default template if you have not uploaded a template). To learn how to change the styles, see Style your MS Word Documents).

Publish to PDF

The PDF publishing in Paligo uses the high-end PDF rendering engine Antenna House, for the highest quality PDF output for print purposes.

To publish to PDF, follow the instructions in General Publishing Process. You will need to:

Select PDF as the output format
Select a PDF layout or create a new one, see Create a Layout.
Set the languages, variables, filters and so on.

To customize a PDF output, use the settings in the PDF layout, see PDF Layout Editor Options.

Note

For information on how to publish a multi-language PDF as a single file that contains all of the languages, see Publish a Combined Language PDF.

Publish a Combined Language PDF

For PDF outputs, you have the option to publish:

Each language as a separate PDF (default)
A combination of languages in a single PDF. We call this a multi-language PDF or a combined language PDF.

To publish a combined language PDF, follow the instructions in the General Publishing Process and use the Languages section to:

Choose which languages to include.
Check the Combine selected languages checkbox to set Paligo to create a combined language PDF (instead of creating separate PDFs for each language).

Note

Use the PDF layout to control which languages are listed on the cover, set the order of the languages, and control other language-related styling. For details, see:

Available Options for HTML and HTML5 Outputs

Paligo has a variety of built-in templates that you can use for publishing to HTML5 and HTML outputs. All of the outputs apart from "clean XHTML" (as it has no styling) are responsive and will adapt to the size of the reader's screen. You can customize the HTML and HTML5 outputs by using Paligo's layouts and use CSS for more extensive changes. Read more about customizing your output, see Create a Layout.

HTML5 Responsive Design: A very modern HTML5 output that adapts to any screen size, from desktop to mobile. Plugins like bootstrap are built in allowing many possibilities for various features.

See more about the built-in variants below.
Clean XHTML: A very clean "plain vanilla" HTML of the structured XHTML type if you want something that you can model as you please.

This format is also used for publishing to the various help desk knowledge bases supported by integrations, like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Desk.com and Salesforce Knowledge (if included in your plan). Read more here: Publish to Your Help Desk Portal.
Help desk HTML: This is the publishing of HTML adapted to help centers like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and (Salesforce) Desk.com.

This publishing option is a direct integration to the help center, and as soon as you publish from within Paligo it is directly available on your support portal.

The help center templates give you a stylish, modern design that works straight out of the box. These templates are based on the latest frameworks and are compatible with the popular Material Design framework, bootstrap and more. Below are just some examples of output themes, but there are more, and each one can be styled any way you like with your custom CSS.

HTML5 Help Center theme 1

HTML 5 Help Center theme 2

HTML5 Help Center theme 3

HTML 5 Help Center theme 3b

HTML5 variants

The built-in templates for HTML5 are ready-made layouts that will give you a modern design right out of the box. Of course each one can be modified by yourself by uploading your own CSS in an override layout that you create in the Layout Editor. The templates represent the popular layout structures:

HTML5 single page provides your content as one long page, with a 'sticky' table of contents that shows where you are on the page.
The HTML5 Multi-page is a based on the popular "tri-pane" format for online help. Each topic is presented on its own page and there is a table of contents (TOC) for navigating between pages as well as a search. For the multi-page HTML5 outputs, we primarily recommend using the "Help Center" variant. The Classic variant is available for legacy reasons, but does not have all the newer features that the Help Center themes do.

HTML5 Multi-page (Classic)

HTML 5 Single page

Help Center Output Options

The Help Center output gives you a portal for your help content with lots of options for what to fill that portal with, what content to promote and so on. The templates are completely customizable and these are just a couple of examples. You can also choose to have a different logo on the portal page than the main content pages, choose to make the header "sticky" (always visible when you scroll down), and make the header full width. These options are in the "General" section of the Layout Editor.

All templates are completely customizable. In most cases you'll be able to customize it yourself with CSS. Ask support if you are interested in more extensive customizations, modifying the HTML framework.

The Help Center output has several optional features, including:

Base themes and content themes. A very modern HTML5 design based on the latest frameworks, compatible with for example the popular Material Design framework, bootstrap and more. There are different themes available for the output and also content themes which provide the base styling for the main body content, such as the style for notes, text, and other elements.

To find out more, see Themes for HTML5 Help Centers.
Ajax or "Preloaded": For faster page loading times with content that is hosted on a web server. There is also a "preloaded" option for faster page loading times with help centers that are not hosted on a server.

To find out more, see Faster Page Loading with Ajax.

Important

The "Preloaded" version does not support all of the help center features. It is mainly intended for special cases, such as if you you need to provide your help center on a local computer rather than a web server. If you can provide your help on a web server, we recommend that you use the main HTML5 Help Center theme instead. For advice on using the "Preloaded" variant, please contact Paligo support.
Top navigation: You can add navigation links to the top of the help center. You enable this in the Layout Editor, and can also select whether to link to existing topics, external content, or both.

To find out more, see Top-Navigation for Help Centers.
Parent publication portal: Create a parent publication portal that links to different subpublications.

There are a couple of ways to have one portal for multiple publications. You can either:
- Reuse several publications in a "parent publication" and then publish it.
  
  This creates a publication where each category panel leads to the respective publication. In this case the Table of Contents (side navigation menu) will cover all those sub publications.
- Publish each publication separately and then put together a "multi publication" shell portal, as described below.
To find out how to set up a "parent publication", see Multi-Publication Portal.

Examples of the HTML5 Help Center output

Classic Multi-page HTML5

This is an HTML5 version of the popular "tri-pane" format for online help. Each page/help article is presented on its own (multi-page), and you navigate them in the Table of Contents (TOC).

Note

The classic multi-page HTML5 layout is a legacy layout and may not support all of the features that are available to the HTML5 help center layout.

Note

If using the default search with the classic multi-page HTML5 layout, there is no message for no matching results. If there are no topics that match the search query, the results list is empty.

Single-page HTML5 (Article style)

Another HTML5 variant that has become very popular is the long single-page article style. It is all one long page with a very clean design, and with navigation that follows along.

The Table of Contents is "sticky" and color bars indicate clearly where you are on the page.

API documentation style

For those that are documenting software with a lot of code or examples, there is a template we call the API style, as it is a type of style that has become especially popular for API documentation.

HTML5 Single page API style

Code and other examples are automatically placed in the sidebar, and the examples are in sync with the body text.
The content is filtered "on the fly", meaning that you can select which programming language version you want to see examples for.

If you click Ruby, all example code is in Ruby, if you click Javascript all sample code instantly switches to show Javascript, etc.
The main body content will also be filtered on the fly, based on filter attributes you use in your Paligo content.
The theme can be easily customized, selecting a different code sample theme and syntax highlighting with a parameter, and some CSS to modify the rest.

To find out more, see API Documentation Layout.

In this section:

Publish

Note

What Happens When You Publish?

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General Publishing Process

Important

Note

Tip

Note

Note

Tip

Publishing Settings

Tip

Save Publishing Settings

Tip

Note

Apply Saved Publishing Settings

Tip

Copy Publishing Settings

Important

Tip

Example of when to copy settings

Batch Publishing

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Publish Multiple Versions of Content

Tip

Note

Note

Tip

Broken Links Report

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Customize Output Filename

Publish Your Content Online

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Publish to a Git Pipeline or Web Server

Publish Manually to Your Web Server

Publish to Amazon Web Services S3 (Amazon S3)

Publish to a BitBucket Pipeline

Publish to a GitHub Pipeline

Publish Directly to Your Web Server Via FTP

Publish to Your Help Desk Portal

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Publish to Other Output Formats

Publish to an LMS

Publish to SCORM (Basic)

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Note

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Publish to MS Word

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Tip

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Publish to PDF

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Publish a Combined Language PDF

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Available Options for HTML and HTML5 Outputs

HTML5 variants

Help Center Output Options

Important

Classic Multi-page HTML5

Note

Note

Single-page HTML5 (Article style)

API documentation style

Search results