Spacing not maintained between link and text

[mehrenst]

If you create a link to another topic or popup and include the following space in the link (default way H&M works) the space between the link and the following text in the compiled output (HTMLHelp) is maintained. However, when you edit the link text and remove the following space and replace it with a space preceeding the text the link and following text appear in the compiled Help output without any space between them.

[Tim Green]

This definitely isn't the default way that H&M works for normal topic links and popup links. You don't need to include spaces at the end of links -- spaces after a link should always display normally. If this is happening in your project something is wrong. This is unlikely to be the reason, but have you manually edited the link styles by adding CSS code to your topic template?

However, there is a small bug that produces exactly this behavior with some macro links. For example, if you insert an ExecFile() macro with a text link the space after the link will be suppressed. The space is actually still there in the HTML code but because of a bug in the HTML Help viewer the code tags for the ActiveX object that are inserted directly after the macro link suppress the display of the space. Adding a second space doesn't help because HTML always ignores multiple spaces.

What is needed is a non-breaking space after the space that follows a macro link. Until EC Software includes this in H&M automatically you can solve the problem by adding it manually. Place the cursur after the space that follows your macro link (you still need this space!), select Insert > Plain HTML Code and type in  

The result in the H&M editor should look like this:

This is the text before the macro link  and this is the text after it.

Note that you don't just type " " in the text, you must insert it with Insert > Plain HTML Code . Also, you must insert it after the space following the link. If you insert it before the space two spaces will be displayed in the text and if you leave the space out completely the word after the macro link will not wrap.

Adding a space in the link itself is also not recommended here because it will include the space in the link underline, which always looks like an error.

[Martin Wynne]

you must insert it with Insert > Plain HTML Code .

Hi Tim,

It's much quicker to insert a non-breaking space by simply typing ALT+0160
directly into the text. Admittedly you can't then tell the difference visually
between that and an ordinary space. (0160 on the number-pad only, of course).

Martin.