### 6.13 Deciding where to display title and shortdesc

For Help output, the TOC that appears in the tripane is generated by a process that does not permit adding shortdesc text. Otherwise, text of title and shortdesc elements can appear in three different places:

1. Always at the beginning of the topic itself (unless you deliberately skip the shortdesc element by mapping it out).
2. In the TOC (but only for HTML, XHTML, and RTF outputs in the case of shortdesc); see §14.3 Generating a table of contents.
3. In related links to the topic, which appear at the bottom of the referencing topics, but only if [RelatedLinks]UseRelDescription=Yes; the default is No. See §13.4 Including descriptions with related links.

In places 2 and 3 (but not 1), if you have chosen to use shortdesc, you have a further choice to make. The default is to have shortdesc appear as text in a paragraph after the text of the title element. You can change that:

- for the TOC, with UseMapDescAsTitle=Yes; see §6.12.2 Including shortdesc content in the title attribute
- for related links, with UseRelDescAsTitle=Yes; see §13.4 Including descriptions with related links

in which case shortdesc does not appear as text, but displays when you mouse over the title (in HTML output); this is because it is instead in the title attribute of the title in the TOC or the related link.

DITA2Go uses the map shortdesc in the links if possible, otherwise the shortdesc in the reltable, or the linktext or desc in the related-links section, or finally the shortdesc of the referenced topic itself.

Previous Topic: 6.12.4 Including children of topic headings

Next Topic: 7. Configuring output formats

Parent Topic: 6. Mapping elements to output formats

Sibling Topics:

6.1 Understanding how to assign formats

6.2 Specifying options for naming formats

6.3 Mapping outputclass attribute values to formats

6.4 Mapping element paths to output formats

6.5 Mapping element attributes to output formats

6.6 Specifying formats for cross references

6.7 Specifying formats for footnotes

6.8 Specifying options for figures

6.9 Specifying formats and options for tables

6.10 Specifying options for special lists

6.11 Specifying options for draft comments

6.12 Specifying options for maps