Anchors and blank lines

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Vsevolod Fikh
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Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Vsevolod Fikh »

Hi!
I've recently updated from version 6 to 9 and the following issue appeared.
On version 6 a blank line with an anchor looked like a blank line after exporting to PDF.
Screenshot_1.png
Screenshot_3.png
But on version 9 there are no blank lines anymore.
Screenshot_2.png
In XML it looks like this:
<para styleclass="Normal"><anchor id="navigation_bar" styleclass="Normal"></anchor></para>
Is it a bug or a feature?
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Tim Green
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Vsevolod,

That is not normal. One cause could be a tiny font size in that paragraph, but that's unlikely since it's using the Normal style with no additional inline formatting. What is the alignment setting of the image in the following paragraph?
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Vsevolod Fikh
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Vsevolod Fikh »

Hi Tim,

The aligment is of the image is "With text". And the text aligment is "Center text".

The full XML of those 3 lines looks like this:
<para styleclass="Normal"><text styleclass="Normal" translate="true">The </text><text styleclass="Normal" style="font-weight:bold;" translate="true">Navigation bar</text><text styleclass="Normal" translate="true"> is located in the upper area of the web application window (see Figure </text><link displaytype="text" defaultstyle="false" type="topiclink" href="navigation_bar" anchor="navigation_bar" styleclass="ISS_Internal_Link" translate="true">&lt;%HMFIGURECOUNTER+%&gt;</link><text styleclass="Normal" translate="true">).</text></para>

<para styleclass="Normal"><anchor id="navigation_bar" styleclass="Normal"></anchor></para>

<para styleclass="Normal" style="text-align:center;"><image src="navigation_bar.png" scale="100.00%" styleclass="Image Caption" figurelistinclude="0"><caption translate="true"><![CDATA[Figure <%HMFIGURECOUNTER%>. Navigation bar]]></caption></image></para>
I don't think that font size is a problem because it was just fine with the same sources in H&M 6.
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Tim Green
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Tim Green »

I tested your exact XML and it's still working fine (in Edge and Chrome and Firefox). Are you also using a skin from Help+Manual 9? If you are using an old skin or templates from version 6 there could be incompatibilities. The code in those skins is now very old and obsolete.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Vsevolod Fikh
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Vsevolod Fikh »

I did use an old template, yes. But I've tried to use new template from "HelpAndManual9\Templates\PDF" folder. Unfortunately, it didn't help.

New template, Edge. Still no blank line between text and the image if there is an anchor.
Screenshot_4.png
If I remove the anchor, it looks fine.
Screenshot_5.png
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Tim Green
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Tim Green »

It wasn't clear that you were referring to PDF, but I just tested that as well and it also works fine, in both Adobe Reader and Edge. Please mail a small demo project to support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and we'll check it for you directly. Please include the graphics from the affected topic. You can create a compact project for mailing as follows:

​1: Select Save As.. in the File menu and save the project in the single-file HMXZ format (first option, single file storage).
2: Delete any topics not needed for the demo.
3: Go to Configuration > Common Properties > Miscellaneous. Turn off "Automatically create history files" and delete the history in the project with the "Purge xx history files" button. Then save again.
​4: Perform a test to make sure you can still reproduce the issue with the demo project.​
​5​: Send us the resulting .hmxz file and the graphics files used in the demo ​topics, if there are any.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Vsevolod Fikh
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Vsevolod Fikh »

Thank you, Tim.
Done
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Tim Green »

OK, I could reproduce the issue. This new build changes the behavior:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/download/ ... p-v902.exe

It was actually intended so that authors could place the anchor above a paragraph without creating additional space. Now the anchor retains the height of the style of its paragraph, but has a width of zero. To achieve the previous behavior, you now need to put the anchor at the end of the previous paragraph, as the last character.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Vsevolod Fikh
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Re: Anchors and blank lines

Unread post by Vsevolod Fikh »

It looks like the issue is resolved! Thank you, Tim!
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