Content reuse using objects

By creating content using objects, it is possible to reuse objects in different documents without duplicating them. For example, an image can be reused in many topics simultaneously, and a topic can be reused in many maps.

These are not copies. They are all instances of the same object. If you edit the original object, all instances of it update everywhere the object is used.

Reuse of components

Another way to avoid duplicating content is to reuse chunks of content called elements. When an element is reused, it is inserted as content that you can see but cannot modify. There are different kinds of reusable content:

A conref is content that a writer can reuse from one topic and insert into another topic.
A key is a placeholder for a variable that a writer can insert for terms or keywords.

Value of reusing content

For example, you might see a product name replaced by a key in a topic. Now if the product name changes, a writer needs to update only the name in the key. The new name automatically updates everywhere they have used the key. This saves writers from having to manually find and replace all the instances of the product name in all the documents.