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Question

Text Format Information

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
April 29, 2019
2 replies
454 views

Hi,

I’m in a Topic that was imported from RH 2017.

When I click in a line, the Font size will be shown, the Font type or the text format won’t.

We should be able to see all the text information.

Pierre

This topic has been closed for replies.

M

metaconcert1965Author

Known Participant

Hi,

Normally, there is a default Style, Font-Size-Color-Paragraph and it's called Normal.

If you type a simple phrase:

My name is Pierre.

That phrase will use the Normal style. If you change the format of the phrase or part of it;

My name is Pierre.

The Style will remain Normal, but the changes will be accepted only for those caracteres, exactly like in this reply box.

So why is it so complex? Its text and we need to easilly type it, or copy it from where ever, and format it in the Body of the Topic or in a Drop-Down Text box without having to look at the code.

Pierre

S

Stefan Gentz

Community Manager

I guess with "Normal" you are referring to the famous Microsoft Word Document Style "Normal" for "normal" paragraphs?

metaconcert1965 wrote
The Style will remain Normal, but the changes will be accepted only for those caracteres, exactly like in this reply box.

That's the same in RoboHelp: When you select some text within a paragraph and change some property in the Properties panel, RoboHelp will show this property for the selected and manually formatted text there.

metaconcert1965 wrote
So why is it so complex? Its text and we need to easilly type it, or copy it from where ever, and format it in the Body of the Topic or in a Drop-Down Text box without having to look at the code.

No need to look at the code. You can define "global" formatting in the CSS with the visual CSS editor without ever looking at the CSS code. And you can define local formatting overrides in the Properties panel without ever looking at the code.

RoboHelp is a 100% standards-compliant HTML5 and CSS3 editor. RoboHelp strictly follows what is defined in these two standards. One might feel comfortable with the models of these standards or not, and like or dislike these standards, of course, but that's just how the whole web works and every website and browser is based on these technologies.

However, if you prefer to have the HTML base element "p" defined with all possibly allowed values, you can simply go the Visual CSS Editor, define everything as per your needs, and from then on, you will see all of this in the properties panel as well. However, it's good to remember, that CSS means "Cascading Style Sheets". That is, styles "cascade" and one element or class inherits formatting information from its parent or ancestor.

It's all possible and very flexible :-)

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Open the CSS and click the source icon.

I suspect that if you look at the style in question you will see that no font has been defined. It looks OK in RoboHelp because you have a font defined for the body and it is using that. In terms of the particular style though, no font defined specifically for that will mean that nothing shows.

It's useful to have a browser that you don't use normally and set the fonts in that browser to something you would never use. That tests that your CSS will apply to your outputs in the way you want.

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

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M

metaconcert1965Author

Known Participant

Hi,

Thank you for your answer.

No matter what the style says, if I select a Font, say Arial Narrow, I expect it to show when I either click the word or select it. Same thing for the other formats, Bold-Italic-Underline-Size-Color-Margin, I expect them to show if I click a word, select it or the paragraph. If there are different formats in that selection, the different ones can be blank.

Pierre

S

Stefan Gentz

Community Manager

I guess you are talking about the "General" section of the "Properties" panel. The information given there is showing the formatting definitions defined for that element in the CSS. If no information is given (like in your example the font-family) then this formatting information is not defined for that element in the CSS but inherited from some other "parent" element. Or in other words: Inherited styling information will not show, but only information explicitly declared for that element or class.

This is a basic principle in HTML and CSS as well as a basic principle in separating content from formatting.

If you click in a paragraph and select a different font, RoboHelp will add this formatting information to that specific paragraph element only and show this in the properties panel as well. This is called a "local formatting override."

If you want to change the formatting of all elements of a specific type (e.g., "p"), you need to click on the "Styles" tab, hover over the element/style and click the pen icon to edit the style. This will bring you to the CSS Editor where you can edit the style as per your needs, e.g. define the font-family there. Once you save the CSS file, the formatting will be automatically applied to all "p" elements and the formatting information will show in the properties panel. However, it is not good practice in the HTML/CSS world to "double define" one and the same formatting information for a parent element and as well as child element that inherits this information anyway.

That said, I get your requirement that the properties panel should show all formatting information that is applied to a selected element, including inherited information. I will discuss this with the team. From a strict standards compliance perspective, I'm not a big fan of it, as it sort of deludes the very clean and strict approach that is there now. But I get that it would be useful. I could imagine showing all "calculated" formatting information including inherited properties and marking inherited styling information visually in some way.

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