Using Table Styles for Notes/Cautions/Warnings?

[techwriter31]

I'm in the process of transitioning from FrameMaker to Flare, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to recreate our notes/cautions/warnings styles.

In FrameMaker, we created a different table and two paragraph styles for each type of note. The table style included two columns with an invisibile cell border between the columns. The left-hand cell automatically included the first paragraph style, which was simply a reference to an image stored on the FrameMaker Reference page. The right-hand cell automatically included the style for the note text.

Is there a way to recreate this in Flare? Or should we just use a paragraph style with "auto-numbered" text?

[GregStenhouse]

A single paragraph style is the easiest way to achieve this. It means you can apply your style by just selecting a format, and can also map FrameMaker styles if needed for an import.

You mentioned autonumbered text, you'd only use this if you had the actual word "Note:" etc in there. It looks like you are using just an image? In that case you'd have a background-image set to no-repeat (and probably also set the background-position to suit), with your margin-left set to accommodate. An important point about background images, they don't print if your users will be printing out help topics.

I've attached what our Note style looks like.

[LTinker68]

An important point about background images, they don't print if your users will be printing out help topics.

Isn't that dependent on how the user has the browser configured?

[RamonS]

I don't know specifically for this case, but the user can configure the browser to ignore any CSS and substitute their own (same for scripting). Client side changes only have a reasonably good chance of working, but there is never a guarantee.

[LTinker68]

I was talking about background printing, specifically. You can turn enable or disable that in the browser, so if it's enabled, then the background image in the note/caution/warning paragraph should appear.

[techwriter31]

Thanks for the responses! I was able to recreate it using a paragraph style. I just had to increase the Left Padding, so that the actual text is to the right of the Caution graphic. But once the paragraph style was created, I still had to figure out a way to allow for a bulleted list within the style. So, I used the formatting from the paragraph style to create a div style. Based on my short interaction with it, I think the div style is the way to go because you can use it for the single note, or use the built-in unordered list and have several bulleted notes within the same div.

(For some reason in the Flare editor, the top border appears to be thicker than it actually is. But when previewed, it appears correctly.)

[LTinker68]

Be aware that MS Word doesn't like DIVs, so if you have to output in Word, make sure you test it. I can't remember if Word is ok with background graphics or not. I don't think it is. It doesn't like images for bullets either.

[ccardimon]

Be aware that MS Word doesn't like DIVs, so if you have to output in Word, make sure you test it. I can't remember if Word is ok with background graphics or not. I don't think it is. It doesn't like images for bullets either.

Word HATES DIVs.

[techwriter31]

Thankfully, i won't have to output to Word. We will be outputting to PDF, Webhelp and HTML help.

[ccardimon]

Cool. Never used HTML help myself, but we still use Word output a lot here.

[techwriter31]

Actually, I did run into a problem when attempting to output to PDF (but not when outputting to Webhelp or HTML help). I received the following error for all of the graphics linked from the CSS file:
---------------------------------------------
<LogEntry
File="../../Content/Resources/Stylesheets/template.css"
Message="Failed to copy linked file C:\Documents and Settings\username\Desktop\Flare_HWTest\Content\template\Caution.jpg to output: Cannot create "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Desktop\Flare_HWTest\Output\username\Temporary\PDF\template" because a file or directory with the same name already exists."
LineIndex="-1"
CharIndex="-1"
Subsystem="Compiler"
Target="PDF"></LogEntry>
---------------------------------------------
After the first attempt, I manually deleted the output folder, to ensure that wasn't causing the problem. I then retried the PDF output, but no luck.

Any ideas?

[ccardimon]

Ouch. That one looks ugly.

[techwriter31]

I think figured it out! I created this project as a test project to get familiar with the FrameMaker import process. When importing FrameMaker files, all graphics that Flare automatically generates are included in the same folder as the topics, rather than the standard Flare Content/Resources/Images folder. I manually created this folder, moved the graphics to the folder, updated the links to the graphics, regenerated the PDF target and no errors!

[ccardimon]

Cool. Sounds like your import process went wonky somewhere. I've had my share of those.

[DocuWil]

I created snippets in Table style. Just 2 columns. The left one for the image:

NotesTipsWarnings.png

It's a matter of taste to fill out the column, like the Note in the example. I use autofit to contents and adjust when needed.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd" MadCap:lastBlockDepth="3" MadCap:lastHeight="91" MadCap:lastWidth="793">
    <head>
        <link href="../Stylesheets/ILNNew.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <p> </p>
        <table style="border-collapse: collapse;margin-left: 0;margin-right: auto;caption-side: top;">
            <col />
            <col />
            <tbody>
                <tr>
                    <td style="vertical-align: top;text-align: left;padding-right: 5px;background-color: #e3facb;">
                        <img src="../Images/note48x48.png" />
                    </td>
                    <td style="vertical-align: top;text-align: left;border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 1px;border-top-color: #000000;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 1px;border-bottom-color: #000000;background-color: #e3facb;font-weight: normal;font-style: italic;"> </td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
        <p> </p>
    </body>
</html>