The Multi-Variant Publishing plugin publishes merged PDFs by combining the HTML files of multiple PDF ProCSS outputs, then converting the combined HTML file into a PDF. The PDF ProCSS publishing jobs can be any combination of book variants that an author batch published using the Multi-Variant Publishing plugin.
In Author-it On-Premises, the plugin performs these actions directly.
In Author-it Cloud, the plugin uses a unique publishing profile to perform these actions. The publishing profile is added to Author-it Cloud libraries as part of installing the Multi-Variant Publishing plugin. The profile is automatically used by the Multi-Variant Publishing plugin. Authors don't need to select it manually, and if authors publish to it directly, the publishing job will fail.
Merged PDFs have all of the content of the individual publishing outputs that were combined to create the merged PDF, with the following additions:
Front and back matter
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Authors can add unique front and back matter to merged PDFs.
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Authors can add as many front and back matter topics as they want, and each topic will only appear in the merged publication once.
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Front matter topics are always added to the start of merged publications.
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Back matter topics are always added to the end of merged publications.
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Library administrators can determine which topic templates are considered front matter. By default, front matter is any topic with the template MVP Front Matter.
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Library administrators can determine which topic templates are considered back matter. By default, back matter is any topic with the template MVP Back Matter.
Multi-variant table of contents
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Merged PDFs can include a special table of contents (the MVP TOC), which links to the start of each individual publication in the merged pdf. For example, a merged PDF could include English, French, and German variants of the same book. The MVP TOC would have three entries, English, French, and German, linking to each of those sections. The individual sections would still have their own table of contents.
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Authors can insert the MVP TOC anywhere inside a merged PDF's front matter by using a specific topic template. Library administrators can determine which topic template is used for the MVP TOC. By default, the MVP TOC is any topic with the template MVP TOC.
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Authors can add additional content to the MVP TOC topic. For example, a title or an explanation of the MVP TOC page. The content will appear above the TOC entries in the merged publication.
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Authors can customize the entries in the MVP TOC. For example, a merged PDF could include English (US), French (Canadian), and German variants of the same book. Authors could customize the MVP TOC's entries to simply say English, French, and German.