Preview a topic

Use this procedure to see a WYSIWYG version of a topic.

When you select Show Preview for a topic, the Conditionals panel appears if your topic contains conditional text. It shows the conditional attributes defined by the DITA specification, with check boxes for each attribute value used in the current topic.

Here is an example of what a topic that contains conditional text looks like in the Preview window.

Preview pane

Use the check boxes to hide or display the portions of your topic that are tagged with these attributes.

If you only have one condition in a topic, you’ll always see the conditional text displayed, whether or not the corresponding check box is selected. If you really want to see what your topic looks like without that single condition, create an alternate dummy condition and then select its check box.
Note: The Preview view does not resolve conrefs or keyrefs, so you will not see that content in the Preview. For example, if the conref is a <note>, you will see the “Note” prefix because that comes from the display stylesheet, but you will not see the contents of the note.

To preview a topic:

  1. Locate the topic you want to preview.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • Open the topic to preview in your XML editor.
    • Right-click the topic and select Show Preview.
    • Hover over the topic.
      Note: This opens a thumbnail view of the topic, not the Preview pane. This functionality is not available from all views.
  3. If you make changes to the topic in the XML editor, click the Preview pane Refresh button (Refresh preview icon) or repeat one of the previous options to see your changes.
  4. (Optional): If desired, click the Print button (Print map icon) to print the contents of the Preview.