By default, the content in each Topic and Content File in your project is stored directly within the project. However, if you have existing content in a supported external source that you would like to re-use, you may wish to reference it directly rather than converting or importing the content. The benefit of referencing the original source rather than importing is that the content is gathered each time you Preview or Build the project so it is always up to date with the original source.
Including rather than importing makes sense if the original copy of the content is likely to be updated in future or if the authors of the external content do not have access to Document! X and HelpStudio.
The following external sources are currently supported:
- Quip Document
Quip is a simple collaborative document editor that makes it easy for multiple users to work on a document. Quip includes a threaded revision and comment capability that makes it easy to track revisions and discuss document revisions - Web Page
Include content from a web page. The whole page can be used, or the content of a specific part of the page.
Fundamentals
To create a new Topic containing content from an external source
Press the New Topic HotKey (Ctrl+T);
or
Click the 
New Topic button on the Project Ribbon Tab;
or
Click the 
New Topic and Table of Contents Node button on the Table of Contents editor Toolbar to create a Topic and a related Table of Contents node in one operation;
The new Topic will be opened for edit. In the banner displayed at the top of the Topic Editor, select the desired Topic Content Source from the drop down list.
Complete the fields to identify the location of the external source:
Quip Document Properties
In the Quip Thread Id field, type the Thread Id of the Quip Document you wish to use the content from. You can find this value in the last part of the page address when you are editing a document in Quip. For example, if the address bar when editing a Quip document shows https://quip.com/NodjfUJJ then the Thread Id would be NodjfUJJ.
In the Quip Access Token field, you can type the Access Token required in order to access this document. See the Authentication section of Including Content from Quip Documents for details on obtaining a Quip Access Token.
Web Page Properties
In the Source Uri field, type the fully qualified uri of the web page you wish to include.
In the Tag Name, identify the HTML tag containing the content you wish to include. This field defaults to the BODY tag.
- or -
If you wish to include content from a specific element in the web page, specify the desired Element Id or Element Class.
Tick the Create Local Images option if you would like local copies of an images included in the content to be created and used during the build process instead of the originally referenced image locations. This option ensures that the images in the generated output remain visible even if the original images are no longer available, or if the generated output is being viewed from an offline location.
In Preview and in the generated output, the content from the external source will be used as the content of the Topic.
To include content from an external source in an existing Topic
Open a Topic or Content File for edit.
Position the cursor at the location at which you would like the content from an external source to be included.
On the Content Authoring Ribbon Tab, click the Widget drop down and select the desired Widget (Content from Web Page or Quip Document).
A Widget will be inserted. Complete the fields to identify the location of the external source:
Quip Document Properties
In the Quip Thread Id field, type the Thread Id of the Quip Document you wish to use the content from. You can find this value in the last part of the page address when you are editing a document in Quip. For example, if the address bar when editing a Quip document shows https://quip.com/NodjfUJJ then the Thread Id would be NodjfUJJ.
In the Quip Access Token field, you can type the Access Token required in order to access this document. See the Authentication section of Including Content from Quip Documents for details on obtaining a Quip Access Token.
Web Page Properties
In the Source Uri field, type the fully qualified uri of the web page you wish to include.
In the Tag Name, identify the HTML tag containing the content you wish to include. This field defaults to the BODY tag.
- or -
If you wish to include content from a specific element in the web page, specify the desired Element Id or Element Class.
Tick the Create Local Images option if you would like local copies of an images included in the content to be created and used during the build process instead of the originally referenced image locations. This option ensures that the images in the generated output remain visible even if the original images are no longer available, or if the generated output is being viewed from an offline location.
In Preview and in the generated output, the content from the external source will be included in place of the Widget.
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