One medium's styles automatically updating styles in another

[mer]

I created a project by importing a document from MS Word. Eventually, I want to produce both WebHelp and print output, so I elected to retain the Word styles when I imported, for the print output.

I modified many styles for the medium Medium (default) and discovered that Flare had also modified them for "print" Medium.

Does anyone know how to go about modifying styles so that they don't interfere with each other?

Thanks,
MER

[LTinker68]

I modified many styles for the medium Medium (default) and discovered that Flare had also modified them for "print" Medium.

The print medium will inherit styles from the default medium if those styles aren't declared in the print medium. When you did the import, Flare probably threw all the Word styles into the default medium section of the stylesheet.

You have two options.

Option 1 is to modify the styles in the print medium to get them back to the appearance you want. You can open the stylesheet in the Internal Text Editor and copy all of the styles from the default medium and paste them into the print medium section of the stylesheet, if you want, then modify those print styles to be what you want for your print output. Or just modify those styles in the print medium that are different from your online output.

Option 2 is to make a copy of the stylesheet and use one stylesheet for the online output and one style for the print output and modify their styles independently of each other. You specify in the targets which stylesheet is to be used with which output. In that situation, both outputs would be pulling styles from the default medium of their respective stylesheet, not the print medium, although you could have the print output pull from the print medium of its stylesheet, but I think it would be easier just to leave everything in the default medium.

[mer]

Thank you, Lisa. I see that when I work on another project like this, I should make a backup copy right away before I start modifying the default medium.

MER

[NorthEast]

Adding styles that aren't in any medium (i.e. default medium) will mean that they are used universally. In your print output (using the print medium), the styles will be a combination of the default styles and what you've set in the print medium - with the print medium taking priority.

If you don't want your new styles to affect the print medium, then just put them inside their own separate medium; this can be called anything you want, e.g. help.
So, if you've already set up your stylesheet, there's a simple way to move the styles out of default into a separate medium. If you open the file in text mode, then add @media { } definition around the group of styles; e.g.:

@media help
{

style1
{
...
}

style2
{
...
}

}


Then those styles will only be used in the help medium (which you use for the help target), and will not affect the print medium ouput.

[mer]

Thanks, Dave. I could have put my styles in the Medium nonprint, but I read in this forum that it wasn't a good idea to use that medium. I suspect that it acts the same way as any medium that I set up. Do you know anything about this?

Thanks,
MER

[NorthEast]

Thanks, Dave. I could have put my styles in the Medium nonprint, but I read in this forum that it wasn't a good idea to use that medium. I suspect that it acts the same way as any medium that I set up. Do you know anything about this?

Thanks,
MER

I'm not sure what the issues are with the non-print medium. It's the default medium name used when you add one of Flare's help targets; you could call your help medium anything you want.

I know of a potential issue with the print medium, as it is used when you print a topic from your help (WebHelp or HTML Help). This is something you may or may not want to happen; if you don't want help printouts to use those styles, then rename your print medium to something else.

[mer]

Thanks for the tip regarding the use of the print medium for webhelp printouts.

MER

[NorthEast]

Yeah, I got a few queries why our help printouts looked very different to what was on screen; I didn't realise styles in the print medium were used for that!