Single-Sourcing Tables for Different Printed Outputs

[techwriter31]

Hi,

I need to generate two outputs using the same content: a user's manual and quick start guide. The user's manual is 8" x 11" and the quick start guide is a booklet that's 4.75" x 4.75". I was able to create two different style mediums to control the look of the text for both outputs, but I'm having a problem with the tables. In the manuals, the font size of the table headers and table rows is 8 pt., but needs to be 6 pt. in the QSGs. I'm currently using table styles, and have the font size defined within the table style itself.

What's the best method for achieving the desired table font size based on medium? Should I not define the font size within the table style, and instead define it using the th and tr style sheet classes, and adjust it for each medium? I'm still pretty clueless with the stylesheet editor in regards to tables, so any help is much appreciated.

Thanks!

[LTinker68]

Yes, I'd set the headings in the table styles to use the default size then set the size of the th tag in the main topic stylesheet. You could also set the overall table width the same way.

[techwriter31]

Probably a silly question, but...I removed the font properties from the table style (for the header, rows and footer) and modified the th and td style in the default medium to the following:

th
{
font-size: 8pt;
page-break-inside: avoid;
font-weight: bold;
}

td
{
font-size: 8pt;
page-break-inside: avoid;
}

But for some reason, the th font is not appearing bolded in the table. I've tried changing the font size a few times to test it out, and that worked fine. Any ideas?

[LTinker68]

Did you delete the output before building? Doing so will force the browser to load everything instead of loading some items from the cache.

Also, when you build the output, the table stylesheet will be referenced after the main topic stylesheet, so the styles in the table stylesheet will override the styles for the same tags as they're defined in the main topic stylesheet. If you disabled the bold checkbox in the table stylesheet for the header row then it probably added a font-weight:normal declaration somewhere in the table stylesheet, which would override the font-weight:bold that you set in the main topic stylesheet. You can either add the bold style back in via the table stylesheet, or open the table stylesheet in the Internal Text Editor and do a search for font-weight:normal and see if it finds that attribute set on a th tag or thead tag somewhere and delete that line.

[techwriter31]

That worked! I had to delete a bunch of the font-weight: Normal instances, but now I can see the changes to the th and td styles. Thanks!!