Formatting issues

Please post all questions and comments regarding Help & Manual 7 here.

Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green

Post Reply
WrightStuff
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:45 am
Contact:

Formatting issues

Unread post by WrightStuff »

Any tips for speeding up formatting?
I am having issues with removing line breaks, getting text to display correctly.
For example, the following text appears too spaced out in the PDF
formatting issue 1.png
Formatting issue 3.png
, it looks fine in Help in Manual
Any ideas about this?
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Stephen Thompson
Technical Writer
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23156
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Formatting issues

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Stephen,

Problems like this are almost always caused by using an incompatible printer driver as the reference for generating PDF documents. HM uses a printer driver to generate PDFs (remember that a PDF is really just raw printer data in a file, and a PDF viewer is basically a printer that prints to the screen instead of to paper). You can access the reference printer driver settings in View > Program Options > PDF. By default, HM will use the screen device driver, but you can often get better results by using a real printer driver. By the same token, some printer drivers can also cause problems, particularly optimized drivers from printer manufacturers. It is generally better to use one of the standard drivers supplied with Windows.

If the driver of your own installed printer doesn't work well you can activate and select one of the known good standard drivers included with Windows. You don't have to actually have the physical printer. Just add the driver with Add Printer in the printer section of the Windows Control Panel and then select it as your reference driver in Help & Manual. The standard Windows Brother HL-2040 and HL-2060 drivers deliver good results, and standard LaserJets and DeskJets are usually also OK. You can also use the Microsoft XPS Document Writer driver, which is always installed in all current Windows versions. However, this driver has the restriction that it can't be set to the higher output resolutions supported by more recent printer drivers.

Windows 10 and above no longer provide direct access to the list of standard drivers. To access it you must do this:

Select Add Printer, then click on "The printer I want isn't listed"
Next: Select "Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings"
Next: Accept the suggested port (this is irrelevant)
Next: Click on "Windows Update" and wait a couple of minutes for the list to display.

The last step can really take a few minutes. Go and make a cup of coffee... ;-)

​After this you will be able to select a driver from the list.​

Important Notes:

DON'T use "PDF printer drivers" like Adobe Distiller for this! This will not work properly and is actually counter-productive.

The output resolution and default paper size are set in the settings for the printer driver in the Windows Control Panel. The default page size set for the printer driver must be at least as large as the page size you have set in your print manual template. If it is smaller you will get clipping in your PDF pages.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
WrightStuff
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:45 am
Contact:

Re: Formatting issues

Unread post by WrightStuff »

I have tried printing with the Microsoft XPS Document Writer, however this hasn't resolved the issues. Is it worth experimenting with other drivers?
Stephen Thompson
Technical Writer
User avatar
Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23156
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: Formatting issues

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Stephen,

Hmm. Is it possible you have set two sets of style definitions, one for print (PDF and Word) and one for screen (CHM, WebHelp and eWriter)? And that you are looking at the screen version in the editor? To test this, click on the Screen/Print toggle button in the status bar at the bottom of the Help+Manual Window. This switches between the screen and print styles, and if you then get the spaced out version in the editor you need to go to Styles > Edit Styles and edit the print version. See here in the documentation for details on this.

If this doesn't help, please send me your .mnl PDF template and a small demo project in single-file HMXZ format to support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and I'll check it.You can create this project 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 .mnl file.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Post Reply