In a structured authoring environment as in HelpServer’s Workbench it is easy to reuse and share content objects: the paste operation in the tree never creates a new instance of a copied object. Instead, it creates a new reference to the copied object.

Assume we have added a ‘More information’ chapter to the ‘Birds’ book with a topic named ‘Related topics’ in which people can find more information about animals. We want the same ‘More information’ chapter to appear in each of our animal books. The following steps explain how to share this chapter over multiple books.

Copying an object

Expand the ‘Birds’ book, popup the menu of its ‘More information’ chapter and select ‘Copy’.

Pasting a copied object

Next, popup the menu of the ‘Fishes’ book and select ‘Paste > Chapter: More information as last in Book: Fishes’. The chapter will appear under ‘Fishes’.