Help Authoring Software // User Manuals // Wiki // Modular Content?

I’m new to Coda but have poked around the community threads and haven’t found a way to achieve what I’m looking for.

  1. A central “library” of documents (rich text, including images) that can be easily updated from the same place (both Coda and GDocs do this well)
  2. A tool to generate different “user guides” comprised of content from the different documents in the library (Coda seems to handle this well if you’re navigating IN Coda and can click through to various pages)
  3. A way to print/pdf these user guides in their entirety to share outside of Coda (this is where I’m stuck)

Has anyone solved a similar problem with Coda? Or does anyone have alternative suggestions for me? I can’t imagine I’m the first person with this use case, but I’m struggling to find help!

Hi Brittany,

Welcome to Coda!

The topic that you are addressing is as wide as the ocean.

One example I have just completed for my 9-5 job is as follows: We have formal project deliverable documents. One if these is a Key Design Decision document, in the form of a slideshow. I converted the PPT to a Google Slide file. This means that each slide now has its own URL. There is for example some key decisions for fixed assets, others for Controlling, some more for Profit Centre Master data.

In a Coda I have different pages with full documentation (not just key design decisions (KDDs), but the whole design) for each area like Fixed Assets, Profit Centres etc. What I can now do is have a link from the Coda page for Fixed Assets back to the KDD, and always have the latest KDD info in the Fixed asset pages. Better still - I can embed that slide in the Fixed Assets page. It means it is visible, but I can also page through the other slides in the Google Slides document.

In a similar manner Google Docs can be used. Every heading is a URL, which can be used as a hyperlink, or be embedded.

To me the best part of the embedding functionality, is that the link can be embedded in many different places, but always have the same “single source of truth”. Or alternatively, only one copy to maintain.
Unfortunately I cannot share that document here, but in a few days I will have done something similar in a Doc that I can share.

On a completely different note, I have been playing around with the different ways that information can be linked inside a Coda doc as you mention in point 2.
If you search for the page “Wiki-like behavior” in this document Rambling Pete's Quick examples you’ll see examples of what I have added so far.

As far as PDF printing goes, have you seen this?: Launched: Print a Single Page (and printing quality improvements!)
I have not used it, and unfortunately it seems to only print the current page. Which may or may not be a problem for you, depending on how your user guide is structured.

This seems to be similar to something that a colleague and I are working on, and I think the tools, Coda and the various Google docs are capable to do it all if you use them together. (And they do work together well.)

BUT you need to have a proper structure and framework, otherwise it very quickly degenerates into a mess.

I hope I was able to give you some ideas.
Piet

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply!

In your first example, do you mean that a single page of a google doc can be embedded into a Coda page? If so, I haven’t figured out how to do that! Have you tried printing any of the pages with embedded Google content?

I’m absolutely looking for a “single source of truth” which is what set me down this path!

I did look at your “Wiki-like behavior” examples during my initial searching, and quickly realized I was in over my head.

PDF printing is only a single page, as you mentioned, so that doesn’t quite get what I need.

Here’s a more specific example of what my ideal scenario is:

Pages in Coda (including formatting and images):

  • Onboarding
  • Client Kickoff
  • Invoicing
  • Our Mission
  • HR Stuff

Then I’d like to put together various guides, which could also be Pages in Coda (if there is a way to embed content from one page into another page).

Guides:

  • Guide 1: Client Guide (includes all page content from ‘onboarding’ ‘client kickoff’ and ‘our mission’)

  • Guide 2: Internal Guide (includes all page content from ‘onboarding’ ‘client kickoff’ ‘invoicing’ ‘our mission’ and ‘hr stuff’

  • Guide 3: Vendor Guide (includes all page content from ‘invoicing’ and ‘our mission’

Each of these guides would need to be PDF/printable in their entirety.

This way, if ‘our mission’ changes we can update it in one place and know that new clients will get the latest content when we generate their guide PDF.

Does that make any sense? Thanks again!

HI Brittany,

I have investigated a bit more on this topic.

Printing in Coda
Unfortunately, the printing functionality in Coda is still “under development”. What is currently there is not great, and seems not to work well when embedding info from Google files.

Linking and Embedding Google files.
Strictly speaking, the link to a Google Doc file is to the Heading, not to a specific page. But by adding a page break before the Heading, forces the heading to the top of the page.
For Google Slide, the link is to a particular slide.
For these two topics, I have examples below. It is also possible to create a URL for a specific grid in a spreadsheet, but have not done an example of that.

I have found several ways to link to various kinds of information within Coda, but have not yet found a way to display that text in the “pulling” page. I hope that there is a way that I just have to find still.

Unfortunately, what I understand from your requirement, this is probably not going to work well in Coda, especially if the things have to be printed. Question - Does it have to be printed? How about just giving access to the doc?

Regards
Piet

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Hey Brittany,

@Piet_Strydom is right and these wiki functions are very limited at the time, as well as printing. I copied the structure I currently use to a doc for your usecase, but this is verly limited when it comes to formatting:

For single paragraphs, notion’s “synced blocks” feature can be emulated with text as named formulas.

But there is hope for more features, a few game changers are about to be launched in the next weeks, check it out:

Long dark silence period with no new releases

Best regards

Marius

Hey There!

While not solving the printing problem you are dealing with (I honestly don’t believe there is any great work-around there) Here is a template of a wiki that mimics a lot of Confluences features.

It:

  • Records at the top of each article when and by whom an article was modified
  • Has an advanced search function that shows the user whether the word or string they are searching for shows up in the article, description, or title
  • Is very scalable, and easy to set up as an administrator (either to edit articles or add new ones)

Reach out if you are interested in using!

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HI Brittany

I don’t know whether you have seen this?

It might help you somewhat.

R
P