Lists in Blockquotes

This forum is for all Flare issues related to PDF, eBook, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker, XPS, and XHTML book targets.
Post Reply
egag21
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 9:05 am

Lists in Blockquotes

Post by egag21 »

When I use <blockquote> to indent a list (<ol> or <ul>) it looks fine online, but when I output to Word then indentation seems to have no effect. However, when I used <blockquote> on <p> it seems to partially work. By "partially" I mean it doesn't indent to the full extent visible online, but it does have an effect.

I want to avoid a plethora of styles and keep things as simple as possible.

Any help?

Here's some sample code of what I'm doing:

Code: Select all

<ul>
            <li value="1">Bullet Level 1</li>
        </ul>
        <blockquote>
            <ul>
                <li value="1">Bullet Level 2</li>
            </ul>
        </blockquote>
        <blockquote>
            <blockquote>
                <ul>
                    <li value="1">Bullet Level 3</li>
                </ul>
            </blockquote>
        </blockquote>
        <blockquote>
            <blockquote>
                <blockquote>
                    <ul>
                        <li value="1">Bullet Level 4</li>
                    </ul>
                </blockquote>
            </blockquote>
        </blockquote>
LTinker68
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 7247
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:38 pm

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by LTinker68 »

You could try specifying the margin-left property of blockquote tag or set up a complex selector specifying a different margin-left property on <li> tags when they're inside blockquotes. Either modification should be done just on the print medium of the stylesheet so that your online version isn't modified, as well.

Or, better yet... Don't put the list inside a blockquote tag at all. Create a custom <ol> or <ul> tag and set its margin-left value to the amount of indent you want. When you create the list in the topic, right-click on the <ol> or <ul> tag in the show blocks area and select the custom class you created. It may not show the proper amount of indent in the XML Editor, but when you preview or build the output then it'll be correct. You can then set a different margin-left value for that custom <ol> or <ul> tag in print output if you want a larger or smaller indent than how it appears online.
Image

Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
egag21
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 9:05 am

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by egag21 »

Thank you for the suggestion.

I experimented with using an assortment of classes to create the indentation but realized quickly that with my headings cascading six levels deep, it would snowball quickly with 12 styles just for lists. Someone on this forum suggested using blockquotes instead to keep things simple and it works great for the text, but not for the lists. Why?
set up a complex selector specifying a different margin-left property on <li> tags when they're inside blockquotes
LTinker68, this sounds interesting. Please, tell me more about how to do this.

Here's the default code for my <blockquote> tag.

Code: Select all

blockquote
{
margin-top: 0em;
margin-bottom: 0em;
margin-right: 0px;
margin: 0;
margin-left: 30px;
}
LTinker68
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 7247
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:38 pm

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by LTinker68 »

I haven't tested this for print output, so I'm not entirely sure that Word (or Framemaker) will honor settings on the blockquote tag, since that's an HTML CSS tag, not necessarily one recognized by Word or FM. If this doesn't work for print output, then you might want to go with the sub-classes on the <ol> or <ul> tags (I have about four such sub-classes, just to handle indents of lists inside lists and similar situations). So make sure you test this before investing too heavily in the process of inserting lists inside blockquotes.

Here's how the complex selector would look, along with your blockquote style:

Code: Select all

blockquote
{
     margin-top: 0em;
     margin-bottom: 0em;
     margin-right: 0px;
     margin: 0;
     margin-left: 30px;
}

blockquote ol,
blockquote ul
{
     margin-left: 0px;
}
That complex selector indicates that if a list (either an ordered or unordered list) is contained inside a blockquote, then set the margin-left value of the list to the value specified for the blockquote tag, which in this case is 30px. If you want the list indented more when it's inside the blockquote tag, then you can set the margin-left value of the complex selector to something other than 0px. You can even set it to a negative number if you want the list to be positioned to the left of where other blockquote elements are positioned.

Once you add the complex selector code above to the stylesheet (you have to do it manually), you can modify it thereafter in the Stylesheet Editor. It'll appear under the "(Complex Selector)" group when viewing the stylesheet in Advanced View. I recommend that after creating it initially, you then set the stylesheet to the "print" medium and set the margin-left value of the blockquote tag to ".5 in" and the margin-left value of the complex selector to "0" or "0 in", for example. If that's not enough - or if the print output doesn't recognize the blockquote tag value at all - then you could try setting the margin-left value of the complex selector to ".5 in" or whatever.
Image

Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
egag21
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 9:05 am

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by egag21 »

Thanks again, LTinker68, for your help.

I've tried your trick without success. It seems that when exporting to Word, the first <blockquote> is used, but the rest are ignored. I'm calling this a bug in Flare because it works fine with the <p> tag and only occurs with the <ol> and <ul> tags.

:cry:
egag21
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 9:05 am

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by egag21 »

Help!!!

In my effort to fix the above issues, I created several classes of OL and UL with various indentations. Once again, the web looks fine, but now the lists in the printed doc has a negative left indentation. I'm really starting to regret migrating to Flare.
LTinker68
Master Propellus Maximus
Posts: 7247
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:38 pm

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by LTinker68 »

In the Stylesheet Editor, select one of the <ol> or <ul> classes, set the stylesheet medium to "print", and set the margin-left property to a positive value.

Make sure you keep an eye on that medium field in the Stylesheet Editor. There is a bug where occasionally you'll leave it in the "default" setting, do something in another screen in Flare, then come back to the Stylesheet Editor and it'll suddenly be in the "print" medium instead of the "default" medium. That got me several times. I think I had narrowed that bug down to having the Stylesheet Editor open in the XML Editor (not necessarily active), then right-clicking on the stylesheet file and selecting Open with > Internal Text Editor, making some changes, saving the file and closing it, then going back to the Stylesheet Editor tab. It didn't happen every time, but I got in the habit of always glancing at the medium field when I look at the Stylesheet Editor, just to make sure that I'm in the correct medium.
Image

Lisa
Eagles may soar, but weasels aren't sucked into jet engines.
Warning! Loose nut behind the keyboard.
egag21
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 9:05 am

Re: Lists in Blockquotes

Post by egag21 »

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I didn't know what I was going to do.
Post Reply