Printable Output Doesn't Seem to Use the Right Styles

[Jared Hess]

* RH 7.01.001
* Vista
* Word 2003

I'm trying to generate a printable manual (.doc file) from one of my projects. The first set of several hundred topics is authored directly inside RH and I don't have a problem with any of those when I export to printed format. The second set of several hundred of topics is automatically generated from a separate tool and then once I have the files generated there, I import them into RH using RH's import feature. I have these imported topics use the style sheet generated by the authoring tool. This is causing a problem, however, when I export the second set to a printed format.

When I choose to export the second set of files (those generated by the other tool) to a printed format, the only style sheet option from the last step in the Wizard is "(None) - Use the Project's CSS Styles". I can't tell if its using the right styles though. When I view the export, the actual printed content the body text is all messed up and the styles don't seem to have the right text sizes (ie instead of the body text having 10 pt font size it has 16 pt font size and so on).

Is there a way to make it look like it does in the help file (with text sized the right way)?

[Peter Grainge]

In cases like this the best way to finding the solution is to create a new project and import a small number of topics. I would import one each of the topics created by RH and the other tool. (What is it? Might help someone identify the problem).

Try that first and then post back if it doesn't get you anywhere. At that point I could look at the small project to see if I can identify the problem.

[Jared Hess]

Thanks Peter. The external authoring tool is Document! X. It is used to automatically generate documentation on objects / methods from type libraries used in our software's IDE for VB automation etc.

If you or someone else would like to take a look at a small test project, I'd greatly appreciate it. The test project I created has two displayed topics: one a Welcome topic with my standard CSS file (it looks fine) and another an imported file generated by DocumentX. The project contains a description of the problem in the Welcome topic with screen captures etc. Inside the !SSL! folder you can get a view of the compiled .chm and also a printable output so you can see the differences between the two.

Project is temporarily located here for download (1.5 mb)

Thanks in advance!

[Peter Grainge]

OK but it's 11pm here so tomorrow...

[Peter Grainge]

I think I can see the problem.

Click in the paragraph that starts "The Active Tip". Look at the style. It is "none". Click in the heading above. The style is in caps which means it is not defined in the CSS.

As a result, when RH hands over to Word, it is not able to hand over the necessary details. "But it's picking up the styles on line", I hear you protest. Not sure how that is working without a lot of poking around as the topics contain a lot of code not normally seen in a RH topic. Nothing wrong with that but it seems to confuse the print generation routine.

Try using one of the Word templates and mapping the styles to something in that. Maybe that will work better.

Give it a try and post back if any follow up.

[Jared Hess]

Mapping styles didn't do anything useful. I ended up creating a series of VB scripts in Word to do the post processing and get things more or less back to normal. Not ideal, but it seems to be working.