Stylesheet Backwards Compatibility

[JAHartman]

Hi,

Soon, I will be starting a new project where I will need to reformat some HTML Help files with a new stylesheet. The files are managed through RoboHelp x5. I have a new stylesheet created with Flare that I want to apply to the project. I tested it out in RH x5 and although the styles remained the same in the sheet, they do not look the same in the output. Also, there is a Div style in the sheet that when inserted creates a "More Information" box for related links in the upper right-hand corner. Though I can see this style in the sheet, I cannot actually use it in the WYSIWYG in RH x5.

Has anyone else even tried to use a newer stylesheet in an older Help-authoring app? Normally, I would just convert the files to Flare to use the new sheet but I cannot do that with this project. The files must remain in RoboHelp x5 format because the Help content is updated directly by their Development team and it is the tool they are familiar with.

I probably need to ask this on the Adobe site as well but thanks for any help/advice.

Judith

[LTinker68]

There could very well be some differences, since MadCap has some styles that are specific to its features, and some of those styles aren't apparent until you build the output and Flare inserts the MadCap.css stylesheet file. For standard styles, though, I would expect most things to be the same, except Flare has problems with wildcard symbols in stylesheets, so if it screwed up those wildcards then RH might ignore that line of code, which could result in the output appearing different between the two programs, although I'd expect Flare to ignore that line of code, too.

Are you comparing styles in the authoring environments of the two programs, or in the generated output? If it's the generated output, then it could be the MadCap.css styles that you're noticing.

[JAHartman]

Hi Lisa,

The styles look different in both the authoring environment and the generated output. For example, I have a body style that uses 9pt Verdana and it appears bigger in RoboHelp than in Flare (both authoring and output environments). I think you are right in that I can make it work though...interestingly enough, if I set the sheet to use 8pt Verdana in RoboHelp it looks identical to the Flare sheet (I double-checked in Flare and am sure it is using 9pt).

I will have to come up with a solution to the "More Information" box Div style issue though. I wonder if making a table style in RH x5 is what I am going to have to do?

Thanks so much for the help!

Judy