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About Variables

Variables are brief, non-formatted pieces of content (such as the name of your company’s product or phone number) that can be edited in one place but used in many places throughout your project. They're especially good for text that might change frequently, such as version numbers and dates. Variables are stored in variable sets, which can hold multiple variables.

There are different kinds of variables: (1) basic ones, (2) custom date/time variables, (3) system variables (e.g., date and time; titles; page count; Chapter, Section, and Volume numbers), (4) Heading variables, and (5) Running Head variables. Some of these are especially useful for page headers and footers.

Closedvariable components

A variable has two main components—the variable name and the variable definition.

example

An example of a variable name is "CompanyName." The definition for that variable name might be "ACME Incorporated." Using that example, if you were to insert the CompanyName variable into a paragraph of a topic, the phrase "ACME Incorporated" would be added at that spot and shown in the output.

For more information about variables, see the Flare online Help.

Closedtasks associated with variables

Following are Analyzer tasks associated with variables.

  • View and Rename Used VariablesClosed Read more… You can view a list of variables that have been inserted in your project. The list shows not only the variables, but each topic where they have been used. You can also quickly rename or remove multiple variable occurrences in a single batch. See Viewing Used Variables.
  • View and Fix Undefined VariablesClosedRead more… You can view a list of all files where you have variables inserted in the content, but those variables have not been defined. This might occur, for example, if you have inserted a variable in a topic and then later change the name of the variable or variable set. The old variable or set name is still used at the location where it was previously inserted in the topic; therefore, a problem exists. From the Undefined Variables window pane, you can open the topic in question and fix the undefined variable. You can also quickly rename or remove multiple variables in a single batch, add the undefined variable to the project, or map the undefined variable to an existing variable. See Viewing Undefined Variables.
  • View Unused Variables ClosedRead more… You can view a list of all variables that have been created in your project but have not yet been used in any topics or other files. You can quickly delete any of the variables that you do not plan to use. See Viewing Unused Variables.
  • View and Convert Variable Suggestions ClosedRead more… You can view regular text that matches existing variables in your project, and then quickly convert these occurrences to variables. You can also double-click a row to open the topic in question, with the potential variable text highlighted. See Viewing Variable Suggestions.
  • Convert Frequent Segments to VariablesClosedRead more… You can view a list of segments that occur frequently in your project. You can see the segment text, the number of occurrences of each segment, and the number of words and characters in each segment.If you notice that certain segments are repeated numerous times in your project, you can easily convert them to snippets or variables. See About Frequent Segments and Converting Frequent Segments to Variables.