Bullets appear as brackets in FireFox

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lporrel
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Bullets appear as brackets in FireFox

Unread post by lporrel »

I use an arrow as a bullet for all of my step by step directions. The bullet appears as it should in Internet Explorer but appears as a bracket { in FireFox.

I am running H&M V 4.5.0 Build 1306 and FireFox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Leonard Porrello
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John Waller
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Unread post by John Waller »

I use an arrow as a bullet for all of my step by step directions.


What arrow are you using? What steps do you take to create it in H&M?
The bullet appears as it should in Internet Explorer but appears as a bracket { in FireFox.
What's the actual HTML code in the BBH output which generates the arrow?
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John Waller
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Leonard,

You are probably using a Windows glyph font like Wingdings and Webdings for your bullets. For political reasons, Firefox, Mozilla and a number of other browsers simply ignore these fonts because they are Windows-only. The only solution here is to use a different font for your bullets.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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lporrel
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Unread post by lporrel »

Thanks Tim! You are correct (as usual). I wonder if you would indulge me:

I have these things throughout my docs, do you have any recommendation as to how I might replace all of them at once rather than having to go through and do them one at a time (which is how I created them since I use them with a couple of different styles).

Is there a symbol you would recommend that says "You need to do something here" that is compatible with IE and FireFox?

By the way, I wasn't able to figure out a way to create a style that incorporated a leading bullet.

Thanks again!
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Dean Whitlock
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Hi Leonard,

You might be able to make a global replace in XML. I tried H&M's regular search and replace, but it seemed to work only on the character value, ignoring font, so if your arrow is a webding glyph for A, you would wind up changing all instances of A in every font throughout your project! I'm not experienced with XML, but you might be able to define a distinct sequence that represented the font change as well as the character. (Make sure you test first on a copy of your project, not on the original.)

As far as a replacement symbol goes, if you want to continue to use a character instead of a small graphic image, I think you're out of luck. The only fonts that are relatively universal, I believe, are Times New Roman and Arial. They don't offer many "this-is-important" characters. You could try a double exclamation point, made bold or italics or both:

!! Always do this step next.

And you could change the font color and size with text styling, though that can affect line spacing and also make problems with colorblind folks. I guess that's why some people go to all the trouble to develop small graphics for such things. I just use a hanging indent and the bold word Important: 8)

Good luck,
Dean
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Leonard,

Dean is right -- the only way to do this globally is in XML. To do this compile to XML with File > Compile > XML, selecting the option to export all topics to a single file. Then open the main XML file in a text editor and do the search and replace operations. After that you can import back to your project with File > Import > XML, selecting the option to replace existing topics. To find the codes you need quickly you can preview the XML code you need to replace in Help & Manual by selecting the XML Source Code tab in any topic.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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lporrel
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Unread post by lporrel »

I haven't been able to figure out how to use a small graphic for a bullet as I am using the arrows (instead of numbers) for step by step directions. In other words, I usually have several bulleted items in row that require an arrow, not just a single item to which I need to call attention. Sometimes they are all formatted with an indented "list" style; sometimes they are inline with normal text. I can't use numbers as I have a lot of reuse, and while a chunk might contain what turns out to be steps 1 - 5 on one page, the same steps may be 3 - 7 on another page.

Addendum: I should have said that I haven't been able to find a convenient way to standardize the the spacing between the bullet graphic, the first character in the first line of text (in-line with the bullet), and the needed hanging indent for subsequent lines of text.
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Leonard,

The indents in bulleted lists are controlled by the formatting of the first item in the list. By default there is a standard indent, but if you manually change the indent (this is easiest with the indent tool in the horizontal ruler above the editor) then the default gets switched off and the manual indent is applied.
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lporrel
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Unread post by lporrel »

Thanks for the tip. I have created a style using a hanging indent. Seems to work fine. One last question. I need a space between the bullet graphic and the first character of the first line of text. Based on what you know about how H&M handles graphics and text, would it be best simply to use a space character, or should I include the white space in the graphic?
Leonard Porrello
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

lporrel wrote:One last question. I need a space between the bullet graphic and the first character of the first line of text.
This is not possible and would look a bit odd because it is really non-standard. You can't do it via the indents, you would have to add a space at the beginning of each paragraph manually...
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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lporrel
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Unread post by lporrel »

Sorry, I wasn't clear. When I spoke of putting a space after the "bullet," I meant the graphic that I will be using as a bullet (not an actual font bullet):

<graphic><space><text>
<hanging indent><text>
<hanging indent><text>
<hanging indent><text>
etc.
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Leonard,

Hmm, in that case it would probably be much easier to include an invisible "space" in the graphic, then you don't have to remember to insert one in every paragraph. If you use a transparent GIF you won't have problems with backgrounds. :)
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lporrel
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Unread post by lporrel »

Alack, 'tis too late. The deed is done, the extra space in place. Yet all is well. :D
Leonard Porrello
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