PageLayout - Decorations Frame

[Nina Esile]

I'm trying to put a black border, about 0.20", along the right side of some section pages (print output), and I've placed a Decoration Frame along the right edge, but can't, for the life of me get any color to fill it. Any pointers?

[LTinker68]

You can't specify the background color of the decoration frame by editing the properties of the decoration frame? Or do you mean you have color in it but it's not showing up in the output?

[Nina Esile]

It's not showing up.

I want a small black border (0.20") is what I want.

[KGaetz]

According to Flare's Help, the decoration frame is not supported in MS Word or FrameMaker output. It does work for PDF, though.

[Nina Esile]

Yes. I'm creating a PDF.

I open the PageLayout and I've defined a Decoration box that I want for the right edge of section pages. I open the properties dialog and well, in my opinion, none of the names for the settings is all that great. Background, I've set to Solid and chosen black, but the setting doesn't take effect on the Deocration frame when I save the Properties. So instead, I've used the Borders settings and made the measurements of the Borders wide enough so that they actually fill the Decoration.

Does anyone know a better way of coloring a Decoration and having it actually show up on the screen?

[KGaetz]

Background is the setting you want to use. Fill it with a solid color and move it to the left or right of the text frame.
Assuming you have created a new page layout that uses the decorative border on, say, the first page, it should work.
Just double-check to make sure that on your Target Editor for the PDF output, you have assigned the correct page layout.

[Nina Esile]

I have created the Decoration on a First page and have specified that the Background should be black. When I look at the frame in the Page Layout editor, it appears gray. When I click on it to move it, it turns black while it is being moved.

What do you mean when you say, "Just double-check to make sure that on your Target Editor for the PDF output, you have assigned the correct page layout."

Thanks

[Nina Esile]

You mean the Target properties for that PDF output... I think that's what you mean!

[KGaetz]

Yes, that's what I mean. You can have multiple PDF outputs. Each one has a TOC and a target. You just want to make sure that you have all the information for a particular target defined in the Target Editor. Then if the frame is still not appearing, it's a question of making sure that the chapter or section breaks are in the right place so that the first page is using the first page layout. Make sense?

[Nina Esile]

I understand. All that is set up correctly. The thing is that when I look at the Decoration frame in the page layout window, the color doesn't even show up there. If I set a Border to a really wide width, and color it black, this thick border is enough to create the colored Decoration I want AND I can see it in the layout window. It shows up on the generated pages, so I know the things are properly connected. I *do* wonder why the Border shows up in the page layout window, but not the background?

GB

[bobmoon]

What version of Flare are you using? What you described works fine for me in v5. I inserted a new decoration frame and on the Background tab I set it to Solid and assigned a start color of Black. It gives me a black rectangle that I can position on the page.

On the Size tab, what values are you using for X and Y, Width and Height?

Bob

[KGaetz]

I am able to get the effect you want on a new project but not on another one I am working on.

On the latter project, I notice that when I first insert the decorative frame, the background color is the default background color for my Web Help target, while the frames for header, footer, and body text are gray. When I assign a background color (red in this case), it does not display anywhere except on the icons for the various page types.

However, on the new project, the frame is gray when I first insert it and then takes the color I assign to the background. So I'm assuming that the CSS is at play, but this is a little beyond my expertise, so maybe someone else can pinpoint the problem.

I'm attaching screen shots of the "good" page layout and the resulting PDF.

[Nina Esile]

Bob,

I'm using version 4.2.1.

Width = 0.20"
Height = 1060 px

I formerly had both start and end fill set to black. And the preview on the properties page shows up as black.

GB

[Nina Esile]

KGaetz,

The page layout that you shared is close to what I'd like to create, except with the colored bar in a different location. I like your sample. Just wish I could get it to work the way it's supposed to and not with my work around.

Thanks so much for all the assistance.

GB

[LTinker68]

I'm able to add the decoration frame in v4.2 without any problem, although if you leave the "Color" field set to (as is) or (default), then it won't fill in your color, even if you specify a color below. So the decoration frame will still show gray even though you've selected a black fill.

[Nina Esile]

Lisa,

I have the Color field set to Solid and Start Fill is set to Black.

I just deleted the Decoration frame that I had previously created and started from scratch.

I select New Frame > New Decoration Frame Mode. The cross-hair cursor appears.
I click and drag the frame to the size I want.
Then I open the Properties dialog and select the Background tab. Set the Color field to Solid and Start Fill to Black.

The frame is still gray.

UPDATE:

You know what's really strange? The Body frame on the page looked like it had a bottom border, which disturbed me because it shouldn't. I clicked on it and scrolled up and sure enough, the Body frame has a Black background and a gray foreground. It looks like the color is being applied to the wrong frame!!

[KGaetz]

I just swapped out the stylesheets from the project where I could add the decorative border to the project where I couldn't. Now the border appears.

Can you just create a clean stylesheet with the same name and drop it into the Stylesheets folder? Do this with the project closed. Then open it and see if the border problem is resolved.

[Nina Esile]

I'm setting it to Solid. I deleted my page and created a new one, then added the Decoration Frame as the first thing. Still shows up as gray.

[Nina Esile]

So, close the project in Flare.

I just have the one project.

You said: "Can you just create a clean stylesheet with the same name and drop it into the Stylesheets folder? Do this with the project closed. Then open it and see if the border problem is resolved."

I'm not sure I follow you on this, if my project is closed.

[KGaetz]

Just browse in Windows Explorer and find the folder where the stylesheets are. If the stylesheet is named Styles.css, rename it OldStyles.css. Then drop a clean Styles.css into that folder. Since the project is looking for a stylesheet with that name, that's the one it will use when you open the project up again.
My guess is that you will see your decorative frame then.

[Nina Esile]

I understand. I'll try that!

[Nina Esile]

Okay, so I tried that renaming stylesheet trick and it worked quite nicely. I was able to create the decoration frame and color it black very well.

The nice thing about this test is that it revealed to me a small clue about why my own style sheet wasn't working. The problem is probably related to this: the gray color of the body text frame (when I was using my former Style-old.css) is just slightly darker than the gray color of the decoration frame. This indicates to me that the gray of the decoration is somehow altered. Not sure where that change would have been made or how, but at least I have a clue.

Thanks to all for you help. I'll root around tomorrow and if I come up with anything interesting, I'll post it.

I'm done for the night!

[KGaetz]

That's good news.
In my case, it was picking up the light yellow background from the WebHelp.
As I said, I am no expert on CSS, but when you use the Stylesheet Editor to make changes, they appended to the end of the code. If you open the stylesheet in the text editor, you can see what I mean.

[LTinker68]

The problem is probably related to this: the gray color of the body text frame (when I was using my former Style-old.css) is just slightly darker than the gray color of the decoration frame. This indicates to me that the gray of the decoration is somehow altered.

That gray you see in the decoration frame isn't its default background color -- it's simply a color used so that you can see what to click on when you want to modify the decoration frame. If you don't modify that decoration frame after inserting it, then you won't see it at all when you build the output, because it's just a placeholder and you haven't replaced the placeholder with anything. Same with all the other frames except the body frame. Only the body frame is designed to automatically pick up the content from the topics. All of the other frames have to be modified in some way after you've added them to the page layout -- otherwise they won't appear in the output at all.

[KGaetz]

I had this problem with one of my projects. Even though I set the color of the decoration frame to red, the color of the frame on the page layout was appearing as pale yellow, which happened to be the background color for the WebHelp (same stylesheet). If I double-clicked on the frame, the red would appear briefly, then return to yellow. When I replaced the stylesheet, the frame appeared correctly.

Kathy