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We have cases like this. The only way I think it could confuse people is in cross-references, and we solve that by putting the chapter name in the cross-ref.
E.g. the "Purring" section of the "Domestic Cats" chapter might say:
Unlike other big cats, cheetahs also purr (see "Purring" on page 77 of Chapter 3, "Cheetahs").
Cheers
Rebecca
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+rebecca -dot- officer=alliedtelesis -dot- co -dot- nz -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+rebecca -dot- officer=alliedtelesis -dot- co -dot- nz -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Monique Semp
Sent: Wednesday, 2 December 2015 8:41 a.m.
To: TechWR-L
Subject: same-named heading1s in different chapters ?
Hello, WR-L-ers,
Iâve ended up with two chapters that both have a heading1, â<topic-name>â. It really is the correct name for both instances, within the context of their respective chapters.
But somehow it just doesnât seem quite right to do this. (Iâve just added an xref in the first chapter to the same-named heading1 section in another chapter, which is what made me wonder about the wisdom of my chosen heading1 titles.) So I thought Iâd query the hive to find out your thoughts?
I could see the answer varying depending on the delivery method. In this case itâs a FrameMaker-authored PDF doc. It will (never?) be delivered as HTML, so no chance of conflicting URL page names. And internal xrefs (which are live hyperlinks in the PDF) always have a page number included, so thereâs no chance of the user ending up in the wrong section.
I could of course make the headings have longer text to provide context, but then for parallelism Iâd want to rename the other chaptersâ topics (which by chance do not repeat). The result would be excessive wordiness and a much harder to scan/comprehend ToC.
Thoughts?
-Monique
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