Control Print Output from ToolbarItem Print Icon

[rmdavidson]

Is there a way to control what is printed when a user clicks the print icon at the top of the help? Currently the first page includes the date, HTML title, and breadcrumb at the top and the URL and page 1/2 at the bottom with nothing in between while in this case the second page has the date and HTML title at the top followed by the topic content then the URL and 2/2. I've had someone complain that the first page is junk and doesn't look professional, but I don't know how to control that output.

flare_print_nav_icon.png

[sfoley]

Is there a way to control what is printed when a user clicks the print icon at the top of the help? Currently the first page includes the date, HTML title, and breadcrumb at the top and the URL and page 1/2 at the bottom with nothing in between while in this case the second page has the date and HTML title at the top followed by the topic content then the URL and 2/2. I've had someone complain that the first page is junk and doesn't look professional, but I don't know how to control that output.

You can use the print medium of your stylesheet to control printing from the browser. The styles for the current medium override styles in the default medium. In this case, it sounds like you might have a page break style set on your heading or first paragraph -- perhaps you also use PDF output, and set H1s to appear as a title on a separate page? In that case, you may need to use separate stylesheets, or conditional tags.

[rmdavidson]

We just have WebHelp and HTMLHelp. We don't do printed output (neither did my last job), but I have a rough PDF style setup just for internal reviews before things get published. My PDFs don't have page numbers or the date though and those are being printed from the browser. I wasn't sure how much of what is being printed here is browser controlled vs Flare.

[sfoley]

We just have WebHelp and HTMLHelp. We don't do printed output (neither did my last job), but I have a rough PDF style setup just for internal reviews before things get published. My PDFs don't have page numbers or the date though and those are being printed from the browser. I wasn't sure how much of what is being printed here is browser controlled vs Flare.

Typically, a browser adds the site URL and page numbers in the margins. (You can add those to your own printed output in Flare using a page layout, but page layouts are never applied to Web/HTML5/CHM output types.) Everything else you see is the page content, which is all from Flare.

Any styles you have defined for your PDF output will carry over into printed content in Web/HTML5/CHM output. That's where I'd start looking for your problem. Look for page breaks, abnormally large top margins, fixed or absolute positioning, etc.

[rmdavidson]

I do have a pagebreak set to always before my H1 tags as the only place we use them is at the start of a topic and all topics start on their own page. Otherwise they all run together in the PDF. I set the breadcrumbs proxy in the masterpage to a ScreenOnly condition, but the best I can do is to preview the skin as I don't have a test site where I can publish and play without anyone seeing it.

Duh. I just realized I can publish it locally and look at in the browser there. Is it Friday yet?

Robin

[sfoley]

I do have a pagebreak set to always before my H1 tags as the only place we use them is at the start of a topic and all topics start on their own page.

If there is any content before the H1 -- even just a space -- then that is likely to be the cause. You can check that by temporarily disabling the page-break-before property and seeing if the problem still occurs.

Since having automatic page breaks for each topic is important to you, you should consider using a different medium when you create PDF output so that you can keep your styles separate. (You can create your own CSS medium, such as 'PDF', and use that instead of the 'print' medium for your styles. In your PDF target, look in the Advanced section for a drop-down list where you can choose the medium Flare uses for PDF output.)