When two topics have identical HTML file names and are included in the same book, Author-it generates a completely blank, zero-byte file by the shared file name.

There is no method within Author-it for tracking down these duplicate file names (the HTML file name field is not searchable).

However, if you’re using SQL server, you can create an Excel spreadsheet that can help track down duplicates when the dreaded blank topic files appear.

These instructions are for Excel 2003. I’m sure it can be done for other versions, but I haven’t done it.

1. Open Excel.
2. From the menu bar, select Data > Import External Data > New Database Query. The Choose Data Source dialog appears.
   1. On the databases tab, select sqlserver, and then click OK. The SQL Server Login dialog appears.
   2. In Server, enter or select the SQL Server that is used by Author-it. This should take the form of <host name>\<database name> or <IP address>\<database name>. For example, 192.168.3.35\authorit.
   3. Select the appropriate authentication method for your database. If you are uncertain, select Use Trusted Connection first. If that fails and you do not know the database Login ID and password, contact your SQL administrator.
3. Click Next. The Choose Columns page of the Query Wizard appears.
4. Under Available tables and columns, expand TOPIC_OBJT.
5. Select the OBJT_ID, HEADING, H_CONTEXT_ID, and HT_FILENAME columns and add them to your query by clicking the > button. After each column has been added, click Next. The Filter Data page of the Query Wizard appears.
6. Click Next. The Sort Order page of the Query Wizard appears.
7. Click Next. The Finish page of the Query Wizard appears.
8. Select Return Data to Microsoft Office Excel, and then click Finish. The Import Data dialog appears.
9. Select where you want to put the imported data, and then click OK. The data is imported and inserted into Excel.
10. From the menu bar, select Data > Filter > AutoFilter. A sorter is added to the top of each column in the spreadsheet.

To find all topics using a duplicate file name, click the down arrow in the HT_FILENAME column header and select the name of the file that is publishing as a blank page. The list updates to show ever topic that has that same file name.

Once you create this spreadsheet, you can save it and reuse it every time you encounter a blank topic from duplicated file names. Data should update automatically, but I usually select Data > Refresh Data just to be sure.

This is completely safe. You can import the data into Excel from SQL, but you cannot use this method to modify the data in SQL. It’s one-way, so very useful and safe for reporting.