Controlling font used for bullets in lists

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rodrikwade
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Joined: Sat May 05, 2018 5:41 pm

Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by rodrikwade »

Hi
In the web help output, the first-level bullet (•) is now displayed very small (I notice that it is the same in H&M online help output). Strangely this seems to have changed fairly recently. A project that I published in August last year has considerably larger bullets. Viewing the HTML, the difference seems to be the use of Lucida Sans Unicode rather then Arial Unicode MS:

New (small):

Code: Select all

<span class="f_Normal" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande','Lucida Sans','Arial';display:inline-block;width:13px;margin-left:-13px">&#8226;</span>
Old (bigger):

Code: Select all

<span style="font-size:12pt; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS','Lucida Sans Unicode','Arial';color:#000000;display:inline-block;width:13px;margin-left:-13px">&#8226;</span>
Is there any way to control this?

Regards

Rodrik
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Tim Green
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Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Rodrik,

This is a sticky problem when converting bullets on Windows systems to characters that work cross-platform on browsers running on any system. The issue is that on Windows, bullet-like characters are almost always displayed with native Windows fonts like the various flavors of Wingdings. These are known as "Windows glyph fonts" and they only work on Windows, and are actively boycotted by all browsers except Microsoft browsers, even if they are running on Windows, because those browsers run on other platforms as well and they want to be the same on all platforms.

If we leave in the Wingdings bullets they will look fine on Internet Explorer and Edge, but they won't work in Chrome, Firefox or Opera, or any other "other" browsers. There's been some fine-tuning done on the conversion recently and that is what you're seeing in your output. I've asked our developer who works on this to chime in and he or I will be adding his information on this to this conversion soon. :?
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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rodrikwade
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat May 05, 2018 5:41 pm

Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by rodrikwade »

Hi Tim

Thank you for clarifying that -- at least I know now that I haven't inadvertently changed something.

Rodrik
Tina Gray BluJay
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Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by Tina Gray BluJay »

Is there any update on this? It's not just that the black filled circle bullet is tiny, but also, the spacing is off between the first and second line of a multi-line bulleted item (it seems to be an issue with all of the bullet symbols, but is most noticeable with the black filled circle bullet). This is only a problem in the WebHelp and appears in both IE and Chrome. There is no spacing issue or tiny bullet issue in the PDF output. Please see my attached screenshots. I am on the latest versions of H&M and the Premium Pack Toolbox. We use a customized responsive skin for WebHelp based on the blue minimalist skin.
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Tim Green
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Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tina,

What version of Help+Manual are you using (check in Help > About) and which skin are you publishing WebHelp with? I ask because the spacing issue may have nothing to do with the bullets. On the issues I can see in your example:
  • Default single-spacing in web browsers is always slightly larger than that used in word processing, that is simply a browser default.
  • The spacing increase after the first line is being caused by the bullet formatting. I can reproduce this and we're looking into it.
  • The missing spacing between your paragraphs may be an old HM or skin issue.
You can solve the spacing issue for the time being by going to Configuration > Publishing > WebHelp > HTML Export Options and turning Export Lists as Text OFF. Your lists will then be exported as standard HTML lists with standard bullets, but they will also have the browser's standard left indent for lists and other features that can't be controlled directly by Help+Manual.

You can mitigate the bullet problem a little by choosing a larger bullet like Wingdings 006C as shown in the screenshot below. In the current version of Help+Manual that will be converted into a larger Unicode bullet that will be cross-browser compatible. However, it will also increase the first line spacing problem. Again, we're looking into it. :)
bigger_bullet.gif
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Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tina Gray BluJay
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Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by Tina Gray BluJay »

I am on H&M Version 7.4.2 Build 4650. Last August, I customized the Minimalist_Blue_WebHelp.hmskin file. Turning off Export Lists as Text did fix the spacing issue but as you said, it changed the indents for both my bulleted and numbered lists (when viewing in Chrome). The spacing in my numbered lists was fine. Rather than editing my list styles to work with Chrome's indents, I've turned Export Lists as Text back on. I'm glad you can reproduce the 'spacing after the first line' issue. Thank you for looking into it! I know you will keep me posted with any updates.
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Tim Green
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Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Tina,

Update: Could you mail me a small demo project at support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) so that we can test what you have in your project directly? That would be a great help. I also need to know if your example is from a CHM file or WebHelp, because that makes a big difference. CHM uses the Windows Wingdings characters directly, but WebHelp converts to Unicode characters for cross-browser compatibility.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Tina Gray BluJay
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Re: Controlling font used for bullets in lists

Unread post by Tina Gray BluJay »

I just emailed the sample project. The spacing issue is seen in the WebHelp. We don't publish CHM files. Thanks!
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