Graphics alongside numbered or bulleted lists

[ChoccieMuffin]

As a completely new user more familiar with Word and Frame, I'm finding Flare is really hard work, and I just can't find a solution to my problem.

I am writing an instruction manual for print output (2 diferent sized pages for PDF, one for print, the other for the users to print if they like), and web format though the PDF could be sufficient for that purpose. (I had hoped to do mobileweb as well, but I think that's going to be beyond my abilities.)

In the instructions I want to include graphics so that they are alongside the text describing the steps. In Word I did this by inserting a table and having numbered lists in one table cell and the relevant graphic in the second table cell on the same row.

If I try to do the same in Flare, the numbers aren't shown in the numbered lists. The only way I can get the numbers to stay is to put the graphic in a different paragraph.

The numbered lists are using a <li> class, li.numbered, inside <ol> tags at the top and bottom of the list. If I put them in a table the numbers don't show up, so I tried to put the list just in the body of the document, with the graphic aligned right, but the numbers drop off. I know they're still there, because if I muck about and stick in lots of empty paragraphs to move the graphic out of the way, the numbers pop back on the list items that aren't beside the graphic. (I wouldn't use that as a way of putting the graphic above or below the list, that was just to see how the list responded.)

I find the terminology really tricky to find what does what, so I apologise if I'm not making a lot of sense and would really appreciate your help.

[Nita Beck]

Are you, by any chance, trying to float the image left or right of the numbered list? If so, I think you're getting caught by a Flare bug. Whenever I've tried to float an image beside a list (ordered or unordered), the bullets / numbers disappear. I have had to resort to using a two-cell table, in which I put the image in one and the numbered list in the other.

Please add your voice to the call for a fix: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.

Hope this helps.

(And yes, some of us have found Flare difficult to master, myself included. But once mastered, it's brilliant. When given my choice of tools, I'd use nothing else.)

[ChoccieMuffin]

Yes, that's exactly what I was trying.

The problem is, when I put the text in the first cell of the table and made it a list, it still didn't show its numbers for some reason.

If I do manage to get the numbers to stay put, is there something in particular I need to do or not do to the table so that it changes width when moving between one PDF page size and another, and also a web or mobile web page?

I'm really beginning to hate this program, because the documentation is NOT helpful at all to people who are not already familiar with the approach. It often says "you can do this" or "you can do that" but doesn't say why or, more importantly, how. (Where's that head-banging smiley when you need it?)

I could really do with an idiot's guide to getting started with it that helps a formatting person relate to the different way of doing things and gives a few examples, as I've found on the forum here, so thank you all for your posts.

[LTinker68]

The problem is, when I put the text in the first cell of the table and made it a list, it still didn't show its numbers for some reason.

Have you modified the styles for lists at all? Sometimes if you set the left margin to a different value other than the default the numbers appear to be "off the page", but they appear in the output. If you're putting the list in a table, you may get the same effect, although again, they should appear in the output.

So is it that you just don't see them in the XML Editor, but you do see them in the Preview and compiled output, or do you not seem them at all, even in the output?

You could also open the stylesheet file and the topic file in the Internal Text Editor and paste the code into this forum for the ol, ul, li and table styles and the code from the topic of the table so we can perhaps see if it's a style issue or something funky happened to the code.

[Nita Beck]

Thanks, Lisa, for jumping in. I've been occupied elsewhere...

I could really do with an idiot's guide to getting started with it that helps a formatting person relate to the different way of doing things and gives a few examples, as I've found on the forum here, so thank you all for your posts.

Check out "Five Steps to MadCap Flare" at http://www.wmebooks.com/Five_Steps_to_M ... 229105.htm.

It's intended to help Flare users with their first project, giving them an overview of the program and the process involved in creating a project start to finish. From the above linked page, you can get to a review of the book that I and another Flare user offered. (Full disclosure: I personally know the authors, but I have no stake whatsoever in their book.)

[ChoccieMuffin]

That book looks ideal, I'm off to find my credit card! Does it cover v6?

Anyway, back to the question, yes I was trying to float the image to the right. I've now put the table back in and added text in the first cell with my graphic in the second. Works fine, and with other tips from this forum I've been able to add explanations between numbered bullets and keep the numbers in sequence.

I've come up against a couple of other problems though.

In a situation where I have more than one graphic to add, if I add a new row in the table so I can get the instruction points lined up with the graphic they apply to, I can't get the numbers in the second row to automatically follow on from the numbers in the list in the previous row. (I have figured out that I can force the numbered list to start, but I wondered if there's a way to follow on automatically, in case I go into the first row and add an extra instruction.)

I also find that if the graphic is longer than the text in the cell it relates to, it just dangles off the bottom of the table and sneaks in behind the text of the next body paragraph. I suspect I need to make a change to the <img> style but I have no idea what I have to change to make it so that text has to wrap around the graphic rather than just flowing over the picture.

I'll do a bit of tidying up and will post some extracts of the style sheet and topic in text editor, in case you can spot something obvious I haven't done.

[Nita Beck]

Re: Does the book cover V6? Dunno. Sorry...

In a situation where I have more than one graphic to add, if I add a new row in the table so I can get the instruction points lined up with the graphic they apply to, I can't get the numbers in the second row to automatically follow on from the numbers in the list in the previous row. (I have figured out that I can force the numbered list to start, but I wondered if there's a way to follow on automatically, in case I go into the first row and add an extra instruction.)

I think that's right. You have to explicitly set the number of each step that begins a new row because the ol element the step belongs to is not the same ol element that the preceding step belongs to. If there is some magic way, I don't know it. (Lisa, any ideas?)

I also find that if the graphic is longer than the text in the cell it relates to, it just dangles off the bottom of the table and sneaks in behind the text of the next body paragraph. I suspect I need to make a change to the <img> style but I have no idea what I have to change to make it so that text has to wrap around the graphic rather than just flowing over the picture.

Are you seeing this behavior just in the XML Editor or in your output as well? If only in the XML Editor, you can probably ignore this.

I checked in one of my projects in which I used the same table idea for steps at the left and images at the right. I didn't do anything special to the images, and they don't exhibit the behavior you're seeing. Here's a thought: Maybe it's not your images. Do you have your rows set to a specific height? If so, that could be the problem.

[NorthEast]

Given your structure of using tables, I think it may be easier not to use normal lists and use paragraphs with an autonumber property.

The problem at the moment is that each table cell contains an individual list (presumably with 1 item each), and these lists aren't linked in any way. You also can't use the Continue sequence property to automatically increment the start number of each list, because the lists aren't inside the same parent container (they'd need to be inside the same cell, topic body, etc.).
So that means you have to manually set the start number for each list; so is there really much advantage in using normal lists in this situation?

It might be worth looking into using paragraph tags with an autonumber property instead; these would allow you to have automatic numbering.
For example:

Code: Select all

p.list
{
	mc-auto-number-format: '{n+}. ';
}

[ChoccieMuffin]

Thanks Dave, that kind of mirrors how I had done it in Word so I'm comfortable with the concept. (Might struggle a bit with the implementation, but that's nothing new! )

Thanks Nita as well, I hadn't thought to look at the built topic. When I did, I notice all of the graphics I've put in whether in tables or just in the body try to sneak behind text. I suspect there's something I can do to the <img> tag or the paragraph tag that I use for graphics (very unimaginatively, <p.graphic>) so that it doesn't behave like this. In the table with two rows, the first graphic doesn't make that table row the same depth as the graphic, which is what I would like, the table row is only the same depth as the text in the first column. I haven't fixed the depth of the table rows.

[Nita Beck]

Dave, a beautiful solution for the step numbers. I'll have to try it out. Question, though: Will the first step number in each procedure restart at 1? What if there are multiple procedures in the same topic. How will the second procedure's step numbers get reset to start at 1? (I suppose if I go try this out, it'll be obvious to me...)

[ChoccieMuffin]

I suspect I may need to have two different <p> styles, <p.Numbered1> which has the start as 1, and <p.Numbered> which continues the numbering scheme.

Found this topic: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=10728

[NorthEast]

I suspect I may need to have two different <p> styles, <p.Numbered1> which has the start as 1, and <p.Numbered> which continues the numbering scheme.

Found this topic: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 13&t=10728

Yep, that's right - you'd need an extra style class that restarts the numbering.


As for the other parts, I'm struggling to visualise the problem with your images, and how you structure your table.

So is it a two-column table, with the text for the steps in the left hand column, and the images in the right column?
If so, do you also have some text in the cells containing the images? (As you mentioned text wrapping around them.)

Also, do the images still have the float property set? (As presumably don't need to use that now.)

[LTinker68]

I was going to suggest the same thing as Dave about using auto-numbered paragraphs. If you do that, you don't need the table at all -- Flare doesn't have a problem with floated images next to paragraphs. Word probably won't like it, so if you're building Word output then you'll need to stick to tables. But if you're doing online output and/or PDF output, then floating images are fine with auto-numbered paragraphs. It's HTML lists (ol/ul and li tags) and floated images that Flare (still) has a problem with.

[doc_guy]

(Where's that head-banging smiley when you need it?)

You are welcome to use mine:

http://paulpehrson.com/blogimages/e/wallbash.gif[/img] <--- Copy and paste, then remove the space in the first IMG tag.

[Nita Beck]

Clearly I am a hack among rock stars!

So, question: How would one make this work for a bulleted list, not a numbered list? Can one have a bullet as an auto-number?

[LTinker68]

Depends on the bullet. I've used a simple bullet • that I just inserted using ALT + 0149 on the side numeric keypad. If you want to use wingdings, webdings, etc., then you'd use a span class that has that font specified, then use the appropriate character, and you'd be fine for PDF output. Webdings and the wingdings might be common enough that they work on Macs as well as Windows machines for online output, but you'd have to research that. If they're not common enough that they'd work on Macs for online output, then you might have to go with an image instead.

[rkirkhart]

I was going to suggest the same thing as Dave about using auto-numbered paragraphs. If you do that, you don't need the table at all -- Flare doesn't have a problem with floated images next to paragraphs. Word probably won't like it, so if you're building Word output then you'll need to stick to tables. But if you're doing online output and/or PDF output, then floating images are fine with auto-numbered paragraphs. It's HTML lists (ol/ul and li tags) and floated images that Flare (still) has a problem with.

Have their been any suggestions made that works in Flare 6 with Images floating right of HTML lists?