Vertical alignment for images

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Andrew Collins
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Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:20 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Vertical alignment for images

Unread post by Andrew Collins »

I plan to use a lot of mathematical notation in my manual, and have inserted MathType OLE objects to do this. Where formulas are on their own line their is no problem, but sometimes I want to have some formulas inline amongst other text. The problem is that the vertical alignment for the images is always bottom, and so the formulas stick out above the rest of the text (see attached screenshot). In the post titled "Can I vertically align an image in the header?" I notice that "H&M doesn't provide vertical alignment options for images on their own". The workaround suggested is to use tables, but this is impractical for text and formulas that span many lines.

So, vertical alignment for images would be very very useful to me! I intend to publish my manual in PDF and HTML Help formats.

Cheers!
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Andrew,

The development team will look into this but having vertical alignment will not help you very much: Even if the line of text is aligned with the middle of the image it will still be a lot taller than the text line so the paragraph will still look like a dog's dinner.

One possible solution for the HTML Help version is to insert your images as image toggles, using a standard icon image that is not taller than the line for the preview image. Then the reader clicks on the icon to see the formula and the visual appearance of the page is not broken up by the large graphics dotting the paragraph. See the chapter on toggles in the More Advance Procedures section of the help for information on how to do this.

This won't help you in PDF, of course, because dynamic toggle are not supported there and you will have to set them to display the expanded version by default for print and PDF output... :?
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Andrew Collins
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Unread post by Andrew Collins »

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your prompt reply! Unfortunately I don't think your suggestion will work in my case, but its good for the forum records. I have attached an image of how it looks in html with vertical alignment set to middle. While the line spacing is a bit ugly, it is roughly comparable to how it looks in word, and is a significant improvement I think.

Cheers,
Andrew
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Andrew,

I agree that it does look a lot better like that. I've already passed it on to the development team for discussion, I'll let you know what they say.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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fjrohlf
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Location: New York

I have that problem also

Unread post by fjrohlf »

I hope that problem can be fixed. I also need to have many equations in my help file to document what the software does. Even a simple vertical adjustment would help - even if it does make the line spacing awkward.

I am also finding that I have to edit each equation twice to get them to display properly. The first time I save the equation to the document the fonts are huge. I then open it again and save it again and the sizes are now normal (but with perhaps some extra junk displayed). If I then switch to another page and back again it looks fine.

FYI: I am using Mathtype 6.5c and Windows 7 - in case that makes any difference.

FYI2: When I imported my file from RoboHelp for word it imported most but not all of the equations. Some I have had to enter again by hand.
Jim
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

This change didn't make it into the current update, sorry about that, but it is still on the wish list. :)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Hydrazine
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Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:08 am

Re: Vertical alignment for images

Unread post by Hydrazine »

Hi,
Could you please provide an update about if/when this feature (to center align images vertically) would become available? Being a new H&M user I really enjoy using your program, but my text is full of interspersed equations and it just breaks my heart seeing them there with that ugly (= non-publishable) bottom alignment.
Best greetings,
H.
Xtructur
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:06 pm

Re: I have that problem also

Unread post by Xtructur »

 
Hello,

Yes, Help & Manual has not given a true qualitative jump in equation editing (Help & Manual Forums - MS Word equations, http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtop ... 22&t=10406) neither in autonumbering (Help & Manual Forums - Ability to numerate the pictures automatically, http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtop ... =6&t=47100): it is still complicated to prepare academic or scientific papers full of equations and numbered cross references. Also it is already missed an own scripting tool (Help & Manual Forums - Repeating format of tables, http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtop ... f=3&t=2246).

Regards,

Xtru

 
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Tim Green
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Re: Vertical alignment for images

Unread post by Tim Green »

If you insert your equations as graphics and your target format is HTML-based (CHM, WebHelp) there is a trick you can use to achieve vertical alignment:
  1. Insert the equation as a graphic (this won't work with OLE objects because you can't apply an ID to those).
  2. In the Insert dialog (or double-click on the image later to display the dialog) enter an identifier in the "Picture ID:" field, for example "equation". You need to use the SAME identifier for all your equations.
  3. Go to Project Explorer > Configuration > HTML Page Templates >Default, select the Source Code tab and add the following block of code directly before the closing </head> tag:

    Code: Select all

    <style type="text/css">
    img#equation { vertical-align: middle; }
    </style>
This example uses "middle" for the vertical alignment property, see this page for a reference of values you can use:

http://www.w3schools.com/Css/pr_pos_vertical-align.asp

This will also work with multiple equations on the page with the same ID. Technically there should only be one element on a page with the same ID, so this is not the most valid HTML in the world, but all current browsers will handle it correctly nonetheless. ;-)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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