Drop-down hotspots- alignment problems

[Guest]

I'm using RoboHelp 7 and have a project with a lot of topics that contain bulleted lists with drop-down hotspots and text. I've encountered an alignment issue in these drop-down hotspots and am hoping that someone can help me understand how to fix it.

I want to indent the text that appears when you open the drop-down so it aligns under the text for the bullet item rather than under the bullet itself (so it's easier for users to differentiate the drop-down text from the bulleted list).

To do this, I did the following:
1) Created my drop-down hotspot
2) Deleted the default text that appears in the text box
3) Clicked the Increase Indent icon
4) Entered the drop-down text

The text appears aligned correctly in the WYSIWYG editor, but has a hanging indent when I preview it and after I've generated WebHelp output. The paragraph format doesn't show a hanging indent, but that's what I see in the preview and generated output.

Can anyone explain why this happens and how I can fix it? Thanks for your help . . .

[RoboColum_n_ · Accepted solution]

The way to handle this is to create a new style in your style sheet with the correct indentation and apply this inside your drop down.

[Guest]

Thanks - I had tried creating a new style for the indent, but was still having some problems with the alignment. I did finally get it worked out and everything aligns the way I want it. Appreciate the quick replies . . .

[HKabaker]

Dropdown text is stored in the topic. Check the source code and output files for a clue. When using bullets, editing bulleted text, inserting a non-bulleted line and deleting it, and so on, I have seen negative indent values creep in where you wouldn't expect them to.

Also, locate the code where you think you inserted the increased indent.

Where bullets appear in the main text, look at the <li> and </li> tags, as well as <ol> and </ol> or <ul> and </ul>. Sometimes you can drop one or pick one up, which will confuse the indent.

With any luck, you'll find the problem in source file.

Colum's suggestion to apply a style to the dropdown text is a good idea, too. Still, if you've done a bit of editing in that area, tags can get confused.

Hope this helps.

Harvey