One Space per Document? Or per Release?

Question

Tech Writers:

Do you create one space per document or is it sufficient to create one space per release/doc set?

If you create one space per release, is there a way to create document/page specific footers for PDF output? Only way I can figure out is one footer for the entire space, which means manually changing for each PDF output for publishing...

Bill Bailey · Answer

Hi Stacy,

Having used Confluence for 5+ years for documentation (plus set up systems for multiple clients), I can share some insights. If your primary delivery model is PDF, then you MUST get Scroll PDF Exporter. It will allow you to generate professional looking PDFs with branding, custom footers, doc-specific information. It WILL take some work to get it working right, and you will be frustrated at times, but it is the best approach. I figure I can get about 90% of what I can do with FrameMaker this way (as seen by an outsider).

On doc organization, I have all my user guides in one space. You have to watch out for page name collisions, but I just prepend part of the doc title as needed to make it unique (Scroll has a macro that will let you override the title on PDF export, BTW, so you can rename a page from  "WYZ Overview" to just "Overview").

And since Scroll PDF has the concept of both templates and schemes, plus support REST calls, I have links that the root of each doc with the REST link to generate the PDF using the correct template and scheme (BTW, I use the scheme settings AND page metadata to pass items needed for customization).

To make this work, you will need to know Velocity (VTL) and CSS, and probably how to create user macros.

Bhushan Nagaraj_zb9hek · Answer

Hi Stacy

Are you using Scroll Versions or any other add-ons to manage your documentation? One space per document sounds hard to manage. Seems like what you are looking for can be better handled using Scroll Versions.

Also recommend taking a look at Scroll PDF Exports. And the documentation for out-of-the-box capabilties including Page Rules at https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/advanced-pdf-export-customizations-198806890.html

Cheers

Bhushan