Interaction of styles with PDF template fonts

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Dean Whitlock
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Interaction of styles with PDF template fonts

Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

In the Print Manual Designer, you can set the font attributes for any of the variables. How do these settings interact with the settings in the Print File View dialog in H&M4's dynamic styles? I am concerned primarily with the settings for the HEADING variables in the bands on the topics page. Do the Print File View settings override the template settings? Or is it the other way around.

I'm having a hard time telling because my new template is creating an interesting variety of gobbledygook, which I believe is due to my messing around with the styles while using the demo version, with its randomly inserted notices. (Approval to buy is coming, but slow.)
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,

Everything you set in the print manual template has priority.
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Hi Tim,

That's what I thought. And, since you can't set font attributes for the topic band, they come directly from your topic format in H&M.

I imported this project from html files, plus some pasting from Word. Because applying styles doesn't always override attributes that you've manually changed, this has led to interesting variations when I started messing with the Print File View in styles. They didn't always affect the printed/PDF font like I thought they would. Conversions are always tricky. I'm looking forward to building a project from scratch.

Thanks,
Dean
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,

You can only set the font attributes in the manual template for items which are actually generted by the template. In addition to all the pages that only exist in the template this includes headings, because the headings are formatted differently from the headings in the electronic versions of your text.

You can't apply fonts to the topics section in the template. This wouldn't make sense because any topic could include any number of fonts. If you want to have different fonts in print and electronic versions of your help you can do this by editing your styles. You can create completely different electronic and print versions for each style. So if you have designed your style tree properly, basing everything on the Normal style, you can reset the PDF version font for the entire project by activating the print version of Normal and setting it to a different font -- the change will then be inherited by all styles based on Normal whose font has not been explicitly changed.
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Hi Tim,

I've used styles a lot in Word and Pagemaker so I'm used to the concept. The mechanics are a little different in H&M3, but not enough to throw me.

I'm a little disappointed that the Print View settings for headings don't override the font formats in the template (primarily because I wanted to apply a bottom border to the Heading1 printed text), but I can understand why that could create a different set of problems.

As for the topics, the problems I'm having I'm pretty sure relate to the fact that I was working with pre-formatted text imported during the conversion. I had to go through the project and apply the various styles to all the paragraphs (Normal, Heading1, Bullet, Bullet Indent, and all the other styles I created). Some of the pre-formatting was not changed (the style was marked as Normal+ or Heading1+), and I also missed some paragraphs apparently. At least, that's what I think has happened: I'm going through part of the project now, carefully re-applying the styles to see if the oddities in my PDF go away in that section. I'm also re-reading the style help to make sure I didn't miss any important details. I'll let you know how it all goes.

Anybody else out there having style/pdf/template issues? The CHM help looks fine - I'm just having problems with the pdf output. Maybe it's the dreaded printer driver issue. I'm using an HP ColorLaserjet 5500 PCL5c. I also have an Adobe PDF driver that produces PDF directly from Word docs and a Generic Postscript printer driver that I can use with any program to create a prn file to drop on Distiller. The problem with the generic driver is that it doesn't output color screenshots.

By the way, how do I get a line to print beneath the Heading1 element on a topics page? If I try to place a line object below the text object in the band, it disappears and I can't reselect it again.

Thanks,
Dean
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,
By the way, how do I get a line to print beneath the Heading1 element on a topics page? If I try to place a line object below the text object in the band, it disappears and I can't reselect it again.
Click on the light grey border of the band to select it (be careful not to select an object instead, it's easiest to select close to the right margin) and then make it a little higher by dragging the lower size handle. Then insert a line object and position it with the cursor keys. Once you've positioned the line object correctly you can make the band narrower again.
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Tim,
I made the band 2.25" high, so the heading1 text object inside has plenty of room around it, but the line still disappears behind the band. I can leave a little bit sticking out into the margin and use that to position it vertically, but if I move it over to align with the margins, I can no longer see it. I tried clicking the move to front button, but that didn't do anything. Will the line print anyway, even if behind the band?

Regarding the funny results I was getting in the PDF output: I was right. Somehow during the conversion and applying of styles, I had created the situation where paragraphs marked Normal were being read correctly, while paragraphs marked Normal+ were not. The topics were printing in two different typefaces and sizes, which caused the text not only to vary, but also to overlap, interfere with headings, and run below the bottom margin. By carefully reapplying the styles so all paragraphs are marked Normal, I made the problem go away.

Note that having a word or two marked Normal+ (by bolding, for example) is not a problem. It's when the entire paragraph is marked Normal+.
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More on the line

Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Regarding the line:

I had been trying to copy an existing line and paste it into the band. It was the pasted line that kept hiding behind the band. Mea Culpa.

When I created a new line (select object tool, click in band, set properties), it appeared in the band. However, it changed the size of the header1 text object at the same time. I think I clicked the object tool in the text object area by mistake, and I will watch out for that next time.

Not surprisingly, the new line cannot be moved outside of the band.

Phew! Tricky.
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean,

You have probably defined the line as transparent instead of black. There is no other explanation for this.

If you read the help on styles you will see that the styles are displayed in bold with a + sign after them when the paragraph or text to which the style is applied contains additional formatting, either manually applied or a second style (e.g. text formatted with a text style within a paragraph formatted with a different style). If you are getting two different fonts and sizes in a paragraph this means that you have applied two different fonts and sizes.
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Tim Green wrote:You have probably defined the line as transparent instead of black.
Nope. The fill is defined as white and not transparent, while the frame is defined as black, which seems to be what matters for a line (as opposed to a rectangle). I checked it again to be sure. When I copy this line and then try to move it into a band, it is not visible behind the band, but it is visible in the margin outside the band. When I move it sideways, it appears to run behind the band. If I create a new line in a band, it is visible in the band, but it is not visible in the margin outside the band. When I move it sideways, it appears to run behind the margin space.
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Tim Green wrote:If you are getting two different fonts and sizes in a paragraph this means that you have applied two different fonts and sizes.
Yes, that appears to be the case, though it happened during the conversion process. The converted text had the font attributes of the original with no style assigned. When I placed the cursor in the paragraph and pressed F4 to apply Normal, the style setting changed to be Normal+. If I selected all the text in the paragraph and pressed F4, the style setting changed to Normal, but any highlighted text within the paragraph lost its highlighting attributes (bold, italic, whatever). I assumed that the plus sign was indicating the presence of the highlighting attributes on individual words, so I went back to click-F4. Apparently, this gave me the double-style situation.

To correct it, I am finding all of the Normal-plus paragraphs, highlighting the entire paragraph, and pressing F4. This seems to be the only way to make the styles change to plain Normal. Unfortunately, I have a lot of highlighting to indicate menu options, buttons, function keys, data fields, and so on, which I must now recreate.
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean Whitlock wrote:
Tim Green wrote:If you are getting two different fonts and sizes in a paragraph this means that you have applied two different fonts and sizes.
Yes, that appears to be the case, though it happened during the conversion process. The converted text had the font attributes of the original with no style assigned.
Conversion of styles from H&M3 projects is not perfect, cannot be unfortunately. The problem is H&M3 didn't really have styles -- its styles were more like definable macros for applying manual formatting. When you did this a style name was associated with the formatted text or paragraph, but this association was not as hard and fast as it is in H&M4, and manually-formatted text had no style at all. In H&M4 new text always has a style, Normal by default.

When you import an H&M3 project the converter will try to identify styles. If it can, it will create a new style and apply it. This works best with H&M3 paragraphs with styles assigned to them that contain no text with any alternative formatting, like headings.

Paragraphs containing more than one kind of formatting and paragraphs that are manually-formatted (i.e. do not have H&M3 styles) will usually be tagged it as Normal with manual formatting, which is indicated by bolding the style name and adding the + character. This does not mean that there is anything wrong with the paragraph -- the result is exactly the same as manually applying font and paragraph attributes to a Normal paragraph that you have created in H&M4. However, what has happened is that although the paragraph is tagged as Normal, everything it contains is defined as manually-formatted.

This has happend if the style name is displayed as Normal+ no matter where the cursor is in the paragraph. This means that some "manually-applied" attribute that has been identified as different from the standard Normal settings is active throughout the paragraph. This can be either a paragraph attribute (alignment, indent, wrap etc.) or a font attribute (face, size, whatever).

Again, as you have discovered, this conversion process is not entirely perfect and you may have to do some manual tweaking after importing. What is missing at the moment is a "find and replace styles" function, that can go through text and apply styles on the basis of predefined formatting attributes. This will make importing old projects much more painless and I have been told that it is on the To Do list.
The converted text had the font attributes of the original with no style assigned. When I placed the cursor in the paragraph and pressed F4 to apply Normal, the style setting changed to be Normal+. If I selected all the text in the paragraph and pressed F4, the style setting changed to Normal, but any highlighted text within the paragraph lost its highlighting attributes (bold, italic, whatever).

This happens when, for whatever reason, the converter cannot clearly identify how the text is formatted. Then it is assigned a "no style" status (indicated by no name at all in the style selector), which means that you must apply formatting to it to integrate it in your project.

When you apply a style to an imported "no style" paragraph without selecting it the paragraph is tagged with the new style. However, the entire text of the style is still identified as having "manually-applied formatting". This has priority, which is a good thing because it allows you to apply a new style to a paragraph without hosing your manually-formatted parts. As a result you get the Normal+ display -- the paragraph is tagged as Normal, but all of its formatting is still regarded as manually applied. Unfortunately, the only way to get around this is to take a "clean slate" approach and select the entire paragraph to apply the style. This resets all highlighting, bold etc., but it also removes the residues of any undefined formatting left over from the conversion.
I assumed that the plus sign was indicating the presence of the highlighting attributes on individual words, so I went back to click-F4. Apparently, this gave me the double-style situation.
Not quite, see above. It indicates that the entire paragraph is tagged with one style but identified as being manually formatted. (As this discussion should show, the style selector display is a valuable indicator of the current style status of text and paragraphs once you learn to interpret it.)
To correct it, I am finding all of the Normal-plus paragraphs, highlighting the entire paragraph, and pressing F4. This seems to be the only way to make the styles change to plain Normal. Unfortunately, I have a lot of highlighting to indicate menu options, buttons, function keys, data fields, and so on, which I must now recreate.
At the moment this is unfortunately the only solution. I hope that the Search and Replace Styles function will make it easier once it becomes available.

I hope that this makes what is happening a little clearer -- in fact, writing it has also helped me to get my own mind around the conversion process more clearly. 8)
Last edited by Tim Green on Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:32 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Alternative: "Create Style from Selection" function

The Format > Create Style from Selection function is also extremely powerful and useful when you are tidying up your styles after importing. If you are satisfied with the current formatting of a paragraph you can use this function to reset the definition of a style on the basis of one paragraph in your project.

For example, if the formatting of a paragraph tagged as Normal+ is actually what you want to use for your Normal style, just click inside the paragraph in part of the text which is not highlighted with additional formatting (bold, italic etc). Then select Create Style from Selection and choose the "Change Existing Style" option.
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Tim Green wrote:Alternative: "Create Style from Selection" function

For example, if the formatting of a paragraph tagged as Normal+ is actually what you want to use for your Normal style, just click inside the paragraph in part of the text which is not highlighted with additional formatting (bold, italic etc). Then select Create Style from Selection and choose the "Change Existing Style" option.
Ah! That is a good thing to know. This function will indeed save me a lot of re-styling during the next conversion.

Thanks again,
Dean
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