About Styles and Style Sheets

Styles are elements that contain formatting settings. You can apply styles to your content to change the way it looks. Flare works with cascading style sheet (CSS) rules that are specified by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C (http://www.w3.org).

The heading above is using the <h1> style tag (which is short for a "first-level heading"). Properties have been assigned to this style to affect its look (such as Arial, 12 pt, bold). We can apply this style to any block type of content (e.g., headings or paragraphs). If we were to change the color to green in the style, every heading or paragraph in the project that uses that style would change to green immediately.

An important aspect of CSS is that it is based on community-wide standards set by the W3C. This means that CSS can be used for any XML-based tool, not just Flare. Tools such as Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker also use styles, but they are proprietary, which means they can be used only within that application.

The W3C and CSS Resources

The vast majority of the styles and style properties in Flare were developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). For more thorough information about each W3C style and property, refer to http://www.w3.org and use the search feature on the website.

Also, when you select a property in the Stylesheet Editor in the Flare interface, a short description of the property is displayed at the bottom of the editor.

The following additional resources are highly recommended for learning more about CSS:

Online Demos by Mike Hamilton (MadCap Software Vice President of Product Management)
- Part 1: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/demos/player.aspx?v=a3e0859ed26f9
- Part 2: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/demos/player.aspx?v=ae88411412d8c
- Part 3: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/demos/player.aspx?v=299a29d3ed285
Online School

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp
Books
- Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web
  
  by Hakon Wium Lie and Bert Bos
  
  http://tinyurl.com/2sk8xs
- HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition (Visual Quickstart Guide)
  
  by Elizabeth Castro
  
  http://tinyurl.com/2pblde
- CSS: The Definitive Guide
  
  by Eric Meyer
  
  http://tinyurl.com/37bp8w

MadCap-Specific Styles and Properties

In addition to the many standard styles from W3C, you might notice several unique-looking styles that begin with the word "MadCap" (e.g., MadCap|footnote, MadCap|variable). There are also many MadCap-specific properties. You will recognize these properties because they always start with "mc" (e.g., mc-footnote-format, mc-language).

These special styles and properties have been added to the Flare user interface in order to support some of the unique features available only in MadCap Software products.

What Can CSS Do?

CSS is a lot more than simply a method for changing the look of text in your documentation. It can certainly be used to modify text in all kinds of ways (e.g., size, font type, color), but it can do a whole lot more, including changing the presentation and behavior of the following elements:

Element sizing (e.g. put a maximum width on pictures)
Element positioning (e.g., specify that a text box should display to the left of the regular flow of content)
Link attributes (e.g., add page numbering for links in print-based output)
Cursor manipulation
And much more

One of the best ways to truly appreciate the power of CSS is to visit http://www.csszengarden.com. This website contains text and links that let you apply different CSS files to the content. Each time you select a different CSS file, the look and feel of the page changes dramatically.

CSS Styles and Page Structure

In order to truly understand CSS, you need to understand how different parts of an XML-based document relate to corresponding style elements.

As the following image shows, HTML and XHTML documents have certain style elements, usually with opening and closing tags (e.g., <HTML> and </HTML>).

<HTML> This is the outermost style element, which represents the document as a whole. In the image the <HTML> tags are red, and the outside line of the box model to the right is also red.
<HEAD> Within the <HTML> tags are two major areas, controlled by the <HEAD> and <BODY> elements. The first of these (<HEAD>) is used for storing metadata for the document, such as the properties title or other information that is not actually seen by the end user. In the image the <HEAD> tags are purple. Within the <HEAD> tags, this image example has just one sub-element, the document title, which is held within the <TITLE> tags.
<BODY> The second major area within the <HTML> tags is the main body, which is indicated by the <BODY> tags. In the image the <BODY> tags are light blue. The <BODY> tags are the container that hold the various pieces of content that the end user sees in the output. Within the <BODY> tags, this image example has just three sub-elements, a document heading held within the <H1> tags, and two paragraphs held within two sets of <P> tags. There are many more kinds of tags and elements that can be added to the <BODY> section in addition to the three that you see in this example.

Ways to Use CSS

Following are the three main ways to use CSS rules.

Inline CSS

With this method, you specify the formatting rule for the content at the spot where it exists in the document. Although this type of implementation is allowed, it is not recommended because changing the look of the text in the future might mean making changes in many files and many places instead of just one. See Local Formatting.
Embedded CSS

With this method, you specify formatting rules for elements within a file and they affect only that document.

example

You might decide to specify that every paragraph in the document should be 11 points. Therefore, in the XHTML document code, you specify between the <head> tags that all paragraphs (<p> tags) should be that size. As a result, every time a <p> tag is found in that document, the text will be 11 points. In the behind-the-scenes XHTML code, it might look like this:

This method is a bit more powerful than the inline method, but it still does not allow you to control the look and feel of more than one document at a time, therefore it also is not recommended.

If you want to use embedded CSS in Flare, you would need to open the XHTML code (in the Internal Text Editor or in a third-party editor) and enter the embedded CSS rules manually. See Internal Text Editor.
External CSS

With this method, you DO NOT specify formatting rules anywhere within the XHTML or HTML document. Instead, you specify the rules in a separate, external file that has a .css extension (see Creating New Style Sheets and Editing Styles). Then, in the XHTML document you provide a link to that external style sheet (see Applying Master Style Sheets and Applying Style Sheets to Topics).

example

You might decide to specify that every paragraph in all of your documents should be 11 points. Therefore, you create an external style sheet, name it something like styles.css, and specify within it that all paragraphs (<p> tags) should be that size. This work can be done in the Flare interface. If you look at the behind-the-scenes code in the CSS file, it might look like this:

Then you associate the external style sheet with all of the XHTML files that you want to use that look and feel. Again, this can be done in the Flare project at multiple levels (topic, target, and project). If you look in the behind-the-scenes XHTML code of one of the document files, it might look like this:

External style sheets are recommended over the other methods. They make it possible to truly separate the content from the presentation and allow you to apply formatting to multiple places at once.

Best Practice: Use external style sheets instead of local formatting.

What is Meant by "Cascading"?

Because there are multiple ways to implement CSS (inline, embedded, external), what happens if there is a conflict? For example, what if you use the inline method to set paragraphs to green, but then you use the external CSS method to set paragraphs to blue? "Cascading" is the concept that is used to decide which method "wins" when such a conflict occurs. It's all about order of precedence. Inline has precedence over embedded styles, and embedded styles have precedence over external style sheets.

So if you make changes in an external style sheet and notice that the look is not being changed, you might check to see if an inline or embedded style setting is overriding it.

External Style Sheets in Flare

Flare lets you create and use two kinds of style sheets—topic and table style sheets.

Topic style sheets This type of style sheet lets you store styles for general content in your project. You can have as many styles as you want within one topic style sheet, and you can create as many style sheets as you need (although one style sheet is often sufficient for most authors and most projects). After you add a topic style sheet to a project, it is stored in the Resources\Stylesheets subfolder of the Content Explorer. The exception to this is when you import source files that already include a style sheet. In that case, Flare retains the structure of the imported files, storing the style sheet in the same location where it resided in the source files.

Note: If you would like to access the same style sheet that is used for the Flare documentation, you can download it from this location:

http://www.madcapsoftware.com/documentation/Styles/styles.css

After downloading this file, it opens in Notepad. You can then select File>Save As in Notepad and save the style sheet to any location you want. For example, if you already have a project where you want to use it, you can navigate to the folder where that project is stored in Windows and save the style sheet in the Content\Resources\Stylesheets subfolder.

Note: You cannot use multiple style sheets per topic for native Adobe PDF, Microsoft XPS, and XHTML outputs.
Table style sheets This type of style sheet lets you create a unique look for tables that you insert throughout your project. This is a great way to create tables that have different patterns (e.g., every other row might have a green background). After you add a table style sheet to a project, it is stored in the Resources\TableStyles subfolder of the Content Explorer.

example

You might use two different types of tables in your project—a "basic" one (with simple borders and no shading) and a "fancy" one (with customized borders and colored shading in certain rows and columns). So you create one table style sheet (let's say it's called "basic.css") and format it the way you want, and then you create a second table style sheet (let's say it's called "fancy.css") and format it. Then, as you insert tables into your topics, you can associate the new table with one of these two table style sheets.

Note: Even though you can create a table style sheet to affect the look of your tables, you can also use a topic style sheet to modify standard CSS table tags (e.g., <th>, <td>) that are used to dictate the look of different parts of a table (e.g., heading text, table cell text). If you like, you can use both kinds of style sheets to change the look of tables.

Note: If you are importing Adobe FrameMaker documents and have tables that you have formatted in a certain way, you can create matching table styles as a result of the import. This can be specified on the Options page of the Import FrameMaker Wizard. In the Flare project, the new table styles will be named after the format named applied to the table in FrameMaker (e.g., "Format_A.css," "Format_B.css," and so on). You can rename these table style sheets in Flare after the import. Even if you do not use this mapping feature, the table formatting still comes across when you import the files. The only difference is that table style sheets make it easier to maintain the formatting of your tables within Flare. See Creating a Project by Importing FrameMaker Documents and Creating Topics by Importing FrameMaker Documents.

Master Style Sheets for Projects and Targets

When you want to use styles in your content, the style sheet needs to be made available for the content in question. In Flare, you can associate style sheets with a single topic (see Applying Style Sheets to Topics). However, you also have the option of using a style sheet as a "master," applying it at either the project or target level, or both.

Master style sheets at the project level You can associate a master style sheet with an entire Flare project. The styles will therefore be available to all content in the project. You can set the project-level master style sheet in the Project Properties dialog (select Project>Project Properties).
Master style sheets at the target level You can associate a master style sheet with an entire Flare target. The styles will therefore be used for the content in the target. If you have specified a master style sheet at the project level and another at a target level, the style sheet at the target will take precedence. If you are using different master style sheets for different targets, the style sheet associated with the primary target determines what you see in the XML Editor. You can set the target-level master style sheet on the General tab of the Target Editor.

See Applying Master Style Sheets.

Best Practice: Use master style sheets at the project or target level.

Note: If you apply a master style sheet at either the target or project level, you will no longer be able to associate style sheets at the topic level (unless you remove the master style sheet associations at the project and/or target level). If you have previously applied multiple style sheets to a single topic and then switch to using a master style sheet, you should make sure that all of the styles you need from the various style sheets are all included in your master style sheet.

Editors for Style Sheets

When you open a topic style sheet, it is displayed in the Stylesheet Editor. When you open a table style sheet, it is displayed in the Table Style Editor.

Stylesheet Editor—For Topic Style Sheets

The Stylesheet Editor allows you to use either an "Advanced" view or a "Simplified" view when working with topic styles.

Simplified The Simplified view is better for new users. It provides an easier way to apply properties to styles, with format options available from a toolbar (similar to the way one would use the Text Format toolbar to change the look topic content without a style). In many cases, only the most common property options are available in the Simplified view (e.g., font, letter/word spacing, paragraph alignment/indentation, auto-numbering format, borders, background). One advantage of the Simplified view is that you can apply a property to multiple styles at the same time. You can also click a check box to hide the properties in the editor, allowing you to see only the styles.
Advanced The Advanced view displays style classes and properties in hierarchical tree structures. It is not as quick as using the Simplified view, but it allows you to edit a great deal more settings than are available in the Simplified view.

Table Style Editor—For Table Style Sheets

The Table Style Editor contains multiple tabs and fields for specifying settings such as patterns, borders, backgrounds, alignment, and margins.

Getting Behind the Scenes

Although Flare provides you with a user interface to work on styles, you can get behind the scenes to see and edit the code for the style sheet. One way to do this is to open the style sheet in Flare. Then click the Send To button in the Standard toolbar and select Notepad. If you make changes in that file, those edits are displayed in the Flare Stylesheet Editor when you save the file in Notepad.

Style Tags, Classes, Properties, and Values

When working with styles, there are some unique terms that you will encounter, especially in topic style sheets.

Classes

You can think of tags as parent styles, because they can have children. A child of a tag is called a "class." Some of these classes might already be included in your style sheet when you first add it to a project. You also have the option of creating classes of parent tags.

Note: Although you can create new style classes, you cannot create new parent tags.

When you create a class, it automatically takes on all of the same qualities (or "attributes") from the parent tag (e.g., color, alignment, size). However, you can change some of those attributes for the class as necessary so that it is different from the parent tag in some ways.

example

Let's say you want to create a special look for paragraph notes in order to provide additional information in a topic. In addition, you might want yet another special kind of paragraph to be used for tips. Perhaps you want a blue background for your note paragraphs, and you want a yellow background for your tip paragraphs. Meanwhile, for your regular paragraphs, you do not want any colored background.

Therefore, you could create a class of your parent <p> tag and name it "Note." Then you might create another class of your <p> tag and name it "Tip." For the Note class, you could change the background property to display in blue, and you could change the same property for the Tip class to display in yellow. But you would leave the background property for the parent <p> tag as it is, without a color. In the end, both the Note and Tip classes would take on all of the style settings from its parent tag—<p>—with the exception of the background color that you have specified for each.

How can you distinguish between parent tags and style classes? In the Simplified view of the Stylesheet Editor, style classes are listed after the parent tags, and a period is added between the name of the parent tag and the name of the class (e.g., p.Tip).

In the Advanced view of the Stylesheet editor, parent tags and style classes are shown in a tree view. You can click the plus button next to a parent tag to see its style classes.

Properties and Values

Every tag and style class has certain attributes that contribute to its look and feel. The elements used to control these attributes are known as "properties," which can be organized into property groups (in the Advanced view of the Stylesheet Editor). The precise information within a property is known as a "value."

example

Returning to the example of a note for a paragraph tag (p.Note), let's say we want the background to be blue. That particular quality can be controlled in a property called "background-color." In the Advanced view of the Stylesheet Editor, this property can be found in the property group named "Background." For our p.Note style, we would assign a value of "blue" to that property.

There are hundreds of basic properties that you can use to change various aspects of a style.

example

Let's say that you plan to create several bulleted lists in your topics, and you want to be able to change the look of bullet items using a style. Perhaps you want to do this for bullet items that are indented to the second level in a list (i.e., they are sub-bullets of first-level items in the list). Suppose you want those bullet items to be displayed in a blue, 10-point Verdana font. Like this:

In order to do this, you might first select the <li> tag in the Stylesheet Editor and create a class for it named "Indented2" (li.Indented2). Then you could select this class, open the Font property group, and change the "color," "font-family," and "font-size" properties.

Therefore, in a situation such as this, you would have set the following in the Stylesheet Editor:

Style class: li.Indented2

Property: color (value=blue)

Property: font-family (value=Verdana)

Property: font-size (value=10 pt)

Here is how it would look when you are finished (in the Simplified view of the style sheet).

Here is how it would look when you are finished (in the Advanced view of the style sheet).

Inheritance

One of the features of CSS that makes it much more powerful than other style systems is inheritance. This is simply the idea that elements in your document can inherit the style settings from other elements. This occurs when one style element is added within another element, therefore creating a parent-child relationship. The child inherits all of the style settings that the parent has, unless you override those settings on the child element. This can be a very powerful feature because it allows you to set properties on a parent element once rather than setting the same thing on all of its children elements.

example

Let's say you want all of your block-level elements to use Arial as the font type. Rather than setting Arial on all of the various tags (h1, p, div, ul, li), you can set it on the <body> tag. That way, the setting will "trickle down" automatically to all of the child elements.

After some time you might decide that you want to continue using Arial for all of those elements except the <p> tags. In that case, you can simply set the other font type on the <p> style. The rest of the elements will continue to use Arial.

What happens if a value is not set on the <body> tag in the style sheet? In that case, the value is inherited from the element's setting in the end user's browser.

Types of Styles

There are several categories of styles that you can apply to content. To filter the list of styles shown, use the drop-down list in the Show Styles section of the Stylesheet Editor.

For steps on applying each type of style to content in your project, see Applying Styles to Topic Content. Following are explanations of the basic types of styles.

Auto-numbered styles These are styles to which an auto-number format has been applied. Therefore, an auto-number format style is not technically a unique type of style, because an auto-number format can actually be applied to other types of styles (such as paragraphs and headings). If you apply an auto-number format to a style, that style will be listed in the Stylesheet Editor if you select Show Auto-numbered Styles.

example

You might select the <h1> style tag and modify its "mc-auto-number-format" property, choosing a format such as {n+}. If you then select Show Auto-numbered Styles in the Stylesheet Editor, the <h1> style will be listed.

See About Auto-Numbers.
Topic styles This lists the <html> style and its classes, which are used to affect entire topics. You might associate a style class with a topic if you are generating DITA output and need to specify a topic type such as "task" or "reference" on it. See Setting Style Classes for Topics.
You can also use this kind of style to apply different master pages to different topics. See About Master Pages.
example
You might want most topics in your project to use the same master page (to display the same text at the bottom of each topic). However, maybe you want a select few other topics to use a different master page. For the majority of the topics, you can simply apply the main master page to the target. But for the other topics, you can use a topic style. For example, you can create a class for the <html> tag in your style sheet, naming it "SpecialMasterPage" (i.e., html.SpecialMasterPage). Then you can modify the "mc-master-page" property for that class so that it is associated with the secondary master page. Finally, you can apply the html.SpecialMasterPage style to the topics that you want to be associated with that master page.
How to use multiple master pages by creating topic styles
1. Create the master pages that you need. See Creating Master Pages.
2. Open your style sheet (in the Advanced view) and select the html tag on the left side of the editor. See Opening Style Sheets.
3. Create a new class. When you are finished it will be placed under the html tag. See Creating New Style Classes.
4. Select your new class on the left side of the editor.
5. In the upper-right corner of the Stylesheet Editor, click the Show field and select Show: Assorted Relevant Properties.
6. Click the cell to the right of the mc-master-page property and select the master page to be associated with it.
7. Press CTRL+S or click to save your work.
8. Open a topic that you want to associate with that master page. See Opening Topics.
9. At the bottom of the XML Editor, click to turn on the structure bars. See About Structure Bars.
10. Right-click on the html bar to the left of the topic content.
11. In the context menu, select Style Class and choose the style that you want to apply.
  Note: You will not see any styles from this list until you create a class for the <html> tag in the Stylesheet Editor.
Paragraph styles These are styles applied to an entire paragraph.
example
You might select a style class called "p.Body" that you have created and modify its "font-size" property to enlarge the body text in your topics.
Footnote styles These are styles that are applied to footnotes inserted into content. Footnotes are commonly used if you are producing print-based output. The <MadCap|footnote> style affects the number (or symbol) that is inserted into topic content and represents a footnote located elsewhere (end of the page, end of the chapter, etc.). The <MadCap|footnoteBlock> style affects the text of the footnote. The <MadCap|footnotesBlock> style affects the area that holds a collection of footnotes.
example
You might select the <MadCap|footnote> style and modify its "mc-footnote-number" in order to restart the numbering for footnotes at each chapter (as opposed to each book, page, or section). You might select the <MadCap|footnoteBlock> style and modify its "color" property in order to show the footnote text in blue.
See About Footnotes.
Heading styles These are styles that are applied to content intended to serve as headings above sections of content.

example

You might select the <h2> style and modify its "font-family" property in order to display second-level headings in an Arial font.
Character styles These are styles that are applied to selected text within a paragraph, rather than the entire paragraph.

example

You might select the <span> style and create a class under it named "code" (span.code). Then you might set its "font-family" property to "Courier New" in order to display text that represents programming code.
Table styles These are styles that are applied to tables and the content within them.
example
You might select the <th> style and modify its "color" property in order to display table header row text in green.
Note: These styles are not to be confused with the separate table style sheets that you can create. However, you can use both table style sheets and these standard table styles from a topic style sheet in order to design the look of your tables and their content.
List styles These are styles that are applied to content displayed in a list, such as a bulleted list or numbered procedures.
example
You might select the <li> style and create a class under it named "indented." Then you might set its "margin-left" property to "0.5 in" so that bulleted list items are indented one-half inch from the left edge.
Link styles These are styles that are applied to content that contains a link, such as a cross-reference or a related topics link.

example

You might select the <MadCap|xref> style and modify its "mc-format" property to change the text displayed in cross-references (e.g., "see page…").
Image styles These are styles that are applied to images and objects that you inserted into topics.

example

You might create a class under the <img> tag, name it "Thumbnail" (img.Thumbnail), and modify its "mc-thumbnail" property. This lets you specify that pictures using that tag should be shown as small thumbnails until the end user either clicks or hovers over the thumbnail to see the large version.
Dynamic effects styles These are styles that are applied to content used in Dynamic HTML effects, such as drop-down text or popups.

example

You might select the <MadCap|dropDown> style and modify its "mc-open-image" and "mc-closed-image" properties in order to change or remove the image, such as an arrow, displayed next to drop-down effects.
Reusable content styles These are styles that are applied to reusable content, such as snippets, variables, or proxies.

example

You might select the <MadCap|breadcrumbsProxy> style and modify its "border-bottom" property. This lets you set the color and width of the bottom border for the "You are here" breadcrumbs feature that can be displayed at the top of topics.
Generated content styles These are styles that are applied to content that is created when you generate output, such as glossaries, indexes, or tables of contents (TOCs).

example

You might select the "TOC1" class under the <p> tag (p.TOC1) and modify its "mc-leader-format" property. This lets you set the leader format, such as dots, to be displayed after the first-level headings in the generated TOC for print-based output.
Controls/form styles These are styles that are applied to content within controls, such as buttons, or forms.

example

You might select the <form> style tag and modify its "text-align" property in order to center a form that you add in a topic.

Pseudo Classes

Pseudo classes are a special group of style classes in cascading style sheets that pertain to elements when they're in a certain state. They are most often used for styles associated with hyperlinks.

Link Pseudo Classes

Link pseudo classes include the following:

Active This class is used when the person activates the element (mouse is clicked).
Focus This class is used if the element has the focus.
Hover This class is used when the person hovers the mouse over the element.
Link This class is used for links that have not yet been clicked.
Visited This class is used for links that have already been clicked.

example

Let's say you want the text to display in green for links that have not yet been clicked. But after a link is clicked, you want it to display as gray text. Therefore, under the <a> style tag, you modify the "link" pseudo class and change the font color to green. Then you modify the "visited" pseudo class under the <a> tag so that the font color is gray.

First-Letter and First-Child Pseudo Classes

There are a couple of additional kinds of pseudo classes that you can create from the Stylesheet Editor. These are called "first-letter" and "first-child" pseudo classes.

The first-letter class lets you apply style settings to the first letter in a block (such as a paragraph), if it is not preceded by any other content (such as an image). This pseudo class is useful for creating drop caps and initial caps effects. See Creating Initial Caps Effects and Creating Drop Caps Effects.

The first-child class lets you apply style settings to the first child of another element (e.g., the first <p> tag that occurs within a <div> tag).

Mediums

What if you want to use certain style settings for some online outputs and different style settings for print-based outputs, without duplicating content? You can single-source styles for topics through the use of mediums.

A medium is an alternative set of styles in a style sheet that you use for different outputs. They are intended to be an exception to the default style you want to use. A common use for a medium is to have one group of style settings for online formats (DotNet Help, HTML Help, WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, WebHelp AIR, WebHelp Mobile) and a different group of settings for print-based formats (Adobe PDF, XHTML, Microsoft XPS, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker). Therefore, you could use the default medium for the online formats and use a "print medium" for PDF and the other print-based targets.

example

Let's say you have text hyperlinks that are shown in blue font with an underline. That may be fine for Target A, but let's say you want this style to appear in black font with no underline for Target B. The solution is to use a style sheet medium.

Suppose Target A is using the "default" medium, where the blue underline properties are specified. With the properties for Target A already set, you now need to specify style properties for Target B. Therefore, in the Stylesheet Editor, instead of selecting the "default" medium, you can select another medium (e.g., the "print" medium) and change the properties for the style to black with no underline. It's the same style sheet and the same style that you are working with. The only difference is that one medium is telling Flare to display that content in blue with an underline, and the other medium is telling it to use black font with no underline. With Target A using the default medium and Target B using the other medium, the content will display appropriately in each output.

See About Style Sheet Mediums and Creating Topic Styles for Print Output.

Table Print Styles

A print style is an alternative set of table styles intended for use in print-based outputs (Adobe PDF, XHTML, Microsoft XPS, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker). See Creating Table Styles for Print Output.

example

Let's say that you insert tables into several topics and apply a table style to them that uses a green border. This might be fine for online outputs (such as DotNet Help or WebHelp), but what if you need to create printed output that displays everything in black and white? Option 1 is to create two different tables in each of those topics (one with a green border and one with a black border), and then use condition tags to separate them into the appropriate targets when you build the output. Option 2 is to manually fix your tables when you generate the printed output, changing all of the green borders to black. Option 3 is to use a print version of the table style, which is much easier and less time-consuming.

Therefore, you create a new table style to be used only for print output. It might even be identical to the your default table style, except that the print table style uses black for the borders. When you insert a new table or edit an existing one, you click the Print Style button (in the Insert Table dialog or Table Properties dialog) and select your new table style.

Steps for Using Styles and Style Sheets

Following are the basic steps involved with using styles and style sheets in your project.

Create a new style sheet This entails adding to your project a new style sheet that is based on a template for an existing style sheet. Flare provides you with templates for both topic and table style sheets. (If you import a project that already contains a style sheet, it is added to the Flare project automatically.) See Creating New Style Sheets.

Note: You can also import an existing style sheet from outside your project.
Apply a style sheet To use the styles from a topic style sheet, you must link the style sheet to the appropriate file(s). It is recommended that you apply a master style sheet at the project or target level. The style sheet then automatically becomes available for all topics in that project or target. See Applying Master Style Sheets.

You also have the option of applying a style sheet to a single topic or to multiple topics at the same time. See Applying Style Sheets to Topics.
Create style classes After a style sheet is opened, you can add new classes to parent tags (e.g., if you add a class called "Tip" to the parent tag <p>, the result is a style called "p.Tip"). There are numerous ways to do this. See Creating New Style Classes.
Edit styles You can customize the properties for your styles to get the look and feel that you want. See Editing Styles.
Apply a style to topic content The final step is to apply styles to the content in your project. See Applying Styles to Topic Content.

Common Tasks For Editing Styles

There are hundreds of tasks that you can perform in Flare by using styles. Following are some common tasks that you might perform when editing styles.

Auto-numbers
- Formats Auto-numbering can be used when you want to create content where certain portions are numbered automatically. This can be accomplished through the use of auto-number formats. See Creating Auto-Number Formats for Styles.
Breadcrumbs
- Look After you create breadcrumbs for online output by using the breadcrumbs proxy, you can modify the look of those breadcrumbs by using styles. There are numerous ways that you can change the look of breadcrumbs. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of Breadcrumbs.
DITA
- Edit styles In this version of Flare, you cannot edit DITA files natively. However, you can edit style classes that result from imported DITA elements. See Editing DITA Styles.
Footnotes
- Border You can modify the default border that is added above footnote comments. You can change the border thickness, color, style, and other settings. You can also remove the border altogether. See Editing the Border Above Footnotes.
- Comment font settings You can modify the font in a footnote comment. This includes changing the font family, size, color, case, and more. See Editing Footnote Comment Font Settings.
- Comment position You can change the location where a footnote comment is placed in the output (e.g., end of page, document, chapter, section, book). See Editing Footnote Comment Position.
- Comment spacing You can modify the spacing for the footnote comment text. This includes the ability to change the spacing above or below the comment text, the white space between words or characters, or the indentation before the number and text. See Editing Footnote Comment Spacing.
- Number format By default, a decimal number (e.g., 1, 2, 3) is used when you insert a footnote. However, you can select a different format. For example, you can change the format to uppercase alpha (e.g., A, B, C) or lowercase Roman (e.g., i, ii, iii). You can also replace the number with a symbol, such as an asterisk. See Editing Footnote Number Formats.
- Number - look You can change the look of the footnote numbers (both in-text and in-comment), by creating and modifying <span> style classes. Alternatively, you can use the <MadCap|footnote> style or a class of it to modify the look of both the in-text and in-comment footnote numbers. The difference is that the <span> style lets you change the look of one or the other, rather than both at the same time. See Editing the Look of Footnote Numbers.
- Restart numbering When you insert footnotes, the numbers are incremented throughout your manual. However, you can restart the numbering at a certain location (e.g., at the beginning of the next chapter or section). See Restarting Footnote Numbering.
Glossaries
- Look of generated glossary You can use styles to change the appearance of a glossary in print-based output. You can modify the look of individual elements within the glossary, as well as the entire container holding the glossary. See Using Styles to Change the Look of a Glossary.
  
  Note: If you want to change the look of glossaries in online output, you can do so by modifying styles within your skin. See Editing Skin Settings and Specifying Skin Style Settings.
Indexes
- Look of generated index for print output If you incorporate a generated index into your printed output (see Creating a Topic for a Print Index), you can customize the way the index entries look in the output. This includes adjusting properties such as font family and size, word space, and space above/below. You can also change the look of the entire container holding the generated index. See Determining the Look of Your Print Index.
  
  Note: If you want to change the look of indexes in online output, you can do so by modifying styles within your skin. See Editing Skin Settings and Specifying Skin Style Settings.
Links
- Concept links You can edit the style (e.g., font, color, wording) of a concept link. When you edit the style for a concept link, the style changes for all concept links in any topics in your project. See Editing Concept Links.
- Cross-references You can edit the style settings (e.g., format, font, color) of cross-references. This includes the ability to incorporate page numbers and context-sensitivity into a cross-reference format. See Editing Cross-Reference Style Formats and Editing Text for Context-Sensitive Cross-References.
- Drop-down text You can edit drop-down effects that you have inserted into topics. See Editing Drop-Down Text.
- Expanding text You can edit expanding text effects that you have inserted into topics. See Editing Expanding Text.
- Keyword links You can edit keyword links that you have inserted into topics. See Editing Keyword Links.
- Related topics links You can edit related topics links that you have inserted into topics. See Editing Related Topics Links.
- Relationship links You can edit the style settings (e.g., font, color, leader format) of relationship links. See Editing Relationship Link Styles.
- Text hyperlinks You can edit the style settings (e.g., font, color) of text hyperlinks. See Editing Text Hyperlinks.
- Text popups You can edit the style (e.g., font, color) of the hotspot or the popup body in text popups. See Editing Text Popups.
- Togglers You can edit the style (e.g., font, color) of the hotspot for togglers. See Editing Togglers.
- Topic popups You can edit the style (e.g., font, color) of the hyperlink for topic popups. See Editing Topic Popups.
List of concepts
- Look After you use the concepts proxy to create a list of concepts, you can change the look of that list by using styles. You can modify the look of individual entries in the list, as well as the entire container. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of a List of Concepts.
List of elements
- Look After you use the list-of proxy to create a list of elements (such as a list of figures or tables), you can use styles to determine the look of the generated list. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of a List of Elements.
Lists
- Alignment You can format lists or items within them so that the text is aligned right, left, centered, or justified. See Aligning Lists.
- Background You can set a background color and/or image on lists or items within them. See Setting the Background for Lists.
- Borders You can add borders around lists or items within them. Borders can be added on any side (left, right, top, bottom), or all around. See Setting Borders for Lists.
- Images for bullets You can change the image used for bullets in lists. For example, if you have a small check mark icon that you want to use instead of round bullets, you can select your image. See Selecting Images for List Bullets.
- Indentation You can indent lists or items within them so that they start or end at a certain distance from the left or right side of the window or page frame. See Indenting Lists.
- Line spacing You can specify the amount of spacing between lines of text in a list. See Setting Line Spacing for Lists.
- Page and column breaks You can apply a page or column break to lists or items within them. You might do this if you want a list to end with a particular item on one page and begin with another list item on the next page or column. For example, you could create a class of the <li> style tag and you could call it something like "PageBreakBefore" (li.PageBreakBefore). For most items in a list, you could use the parent <li> tag, but if you want a page break to occur on a particular list item, you could apply your li.PageBreakBefore style to it. This feature is used for print-based output. See Setting Page and Column Breaks for Lists.
- Spacing above/below You can specify the amount of spacing above and below lists or items within them. See Setting Spacing Above and Below in Lists.
- Type You can specify the type of list (e.g., circle, square, decimal, upper alpha) for a style. See Specifying a List Type for a Style.
Mini-TOCs
- Look of mini-TOC in online output You can use the <MadCap|miniTocProxy> style to modify the look of mini-TOCs in your online output. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of an Online Mini-TOC.
- Look of mini-TOC in print-based output For generated mini-TOCs, you can use styles to adjust properties such as font family and size, indentation, word spacing, spacing above/below, TOC width, page number alignment, and leader settings (e.g., the dots between the headings and the numbers). The headings in the mini-TOC will take on the settings that you specify. You can also modify the look of the entire container holding the generated mini-TOC. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of a Print Mini-TOC.
Paragraphs and headings
- Alignment You can format a paragraph so that the text is aligned right, left, centered, or justified. See Aligning Paragraphs.
- Background You can set a background color and/or image on a paragraph. See Setting the Background for Paragraphs.
- Borders You can add borders around a paragraph. Borders can be added on any side of a paragraph (left, right, top, bottom), or all around it. See Setting Borders for Paragraphs.
- Drop caps/initial caps You can create an effect on a paragraph so that the initial letter is different than the others and drops down to the lines below. See Creating Drop Caps Effects and Creating Initial Caps Effects.
- Hyphenation You can specify whether words at the end of a line in a paragraph should be hyphenated before continuing to the next line. You can also determine minimum word and character settings to be used for hyphenation. See Setting Hyphenation.
- Indentation You can indent paragraphs so that they start or end at a certain distance from the left or right side of the window or page frame. See Indenting Paragraphs.
- Line spacing You can specify the amount of spacing between lines in a paragraph. See Setting Line Spacing.
- Next style You can specify that a particular style should be used when you press Enter at the end of the current style. For example, after you type text for a heading and press Enter, you might want the next style to be something like p.TopicText, rather than the main <p> tag. See Setting a "Next" Style.
- Page and column breaks You can apply a page or column break to a paragraph or heading. For example, you might do this if you want the paragraph or heading to start at the beginning of the next page or column. This feature is used for print-based output. See Setting Page and Column Breaks.
- Positioning After you add a paragraph or heading to a topic, you can adjust its positioning on the page. For example, you can float it to the left of the page layout frame to create a side heading. You can do this by applying a positioning setting on the style used by the paragraph. See Positioning Paragraphs and Heading Examples.
- Short line elimination You can use this feature to automatically adjust word spacing if the last line of a paragraph is only a certain number of characters long. Therefore, the spacing may be widened to make the last line longer, or the spacing may be narrowed to bring the words in the last line up to the previous line. See Setting Short Line Elimination.
- Spacing above/below You can set the amount of spacing above and below paragraphs. See Setting Paragraph Spacing Above and Below.
- Widow and orphan control You can use widow and orphan control to avoid instances where "leftover" lines from a paragraph are shown at the top or bottom of a page or column. See Setting Widow and Orphan Control.
Pictures
- Background image You can add a background image on topics by using the <body> style tag. See Setting a Background Image on Topics.
- Resize You can resize many images at once by using the <img> style tag in the Stylesheet Editor. See Resizing Pictures.
- Thumbnails When you insert images into Flare content, you can specify that the pictures should be displayed as thumbnails (i.e., much smaller versions of the image) in the output. This is a way to condense topics so that pictures are not taking up as much real estate. When you use this feature, you can specify ways that the user can enlarge the image to see its full size (e.g., by hovering over the thumbnail, by clicking the thumbnail). See Showing Images as Thumbnails in Output.
Redacted text
- Set Flare supports redacted text, which is text that is "blacked out" in Adobe PDF or Microsoft XPS output. This is much more efficient than attempting to black out text or other content after the document has been printed. You can set redacted text on any kind of content (e.g., characters, paragraphs, images, tables). You can do this locally at the font level by highlighting each piece of content, or you can specify redaction on a style and then apply that style to content whenever necessary. It is recommended that you use styles whenever possible. See Setting Redacted Text on Content.
Rulers (horizontal lines)
- Edit After you insert a ruler ("horizontal line") in a topic, you can edit its settings (e.g., size, color, position) by modifying the <hr> style in the Stylesheet Editor. See Editing Rulers.
Search
- Look of highlighted search terms When users perform searches in your online output, the keywords that are found are highlighted in the topics. The background for each term found in a topic is highlighted in a different color. In Flare you can create styles for this purpose and change not only the color background, but other settings as well (e.g., font style, text decoration). See Using Styles to Change the Look of Highlighted Search Terms.
Tables
- Using table style sheet You can modify the look and feel of multiple tables at once by editing the properties in a custom table style sheet. These table style sheets let you easily and quickly create patterns and different looks for tables. See How to edit styles in a table style sheet.
- Using topic style sheet You can modify the look and feel of multiple tables at once by editing standard HTML table tags (e.g., <table>, <th>, <td>, <tr>) in your topic style sheet. For example, you might use these styles in order to control the look of the text that appears in your table headings (<th> style) or within the cells (<td> style). See Editing Table Styles in Topic Style Sheets.
Tables of contents
- Heading levels When creating print-based output, you can determine which topic headings will be displayed at which level in the generated TOC. For example, even though all of your topics may use a heading style of <h1>, you might want some of those topic headings to display at the first level in the print TOC (acting as an <h1>), others at the second level (acting as an <h2>), and still others at the third level (acting as an <h3>). See Using Styles for Print TOC Heading Levels.
- Look For TOCs in print-based output, you can use styles to adjust properties such as font family and size, indentation, word spacing, spacing above/below, TOC width, page number alignment, and leader settings (e.g., the dots between the headings and the numbers). The headings in the print TOC will take on the settings that you specify. You can also modify the look of the entire container holding the generated TOC. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of a Print TOC.
Note: If you want to change the look of your TOC in online output, you can do so by modifying styles within your skin. See Editing Skin Settings and Specifying Skin Style Settings.
Text
- Bold You can apply a bold weight to text. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to highlight the text and click the Bold button . However, you can also change the properties of a different tag so that it uses a bold weight. See Setting Bold Text.
- Case You can change the case of text so it is all uppercase or lowercase. You can also specify that the first letter of each word in the selected content should be capitalized, while the other letters are lowercase. See Setting the Case of Text.
- Color of background You can set a background color for text. See Setting the Background Color for Text.
- Color of text You can select a color for text. See Setting the Color for Text.
- Font family You can select a font family (e.g., Arial, Verdana) for text to change its look. See Setting the Font Family for Text.
- Italics You can apply italics to text. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to highlight the text and click the Italic button . However, you can also change the properties of a different tag so that it uses italics. See Setting Italic Text.
- Italic correction You can correct the spacing in a line when italic formatting is involved. Often, when you italicize a word in the middle of a sentence, the last letter of that word has less space between it and the following word (due to the fact that it is italicized and the following word is not). Using italic correction, you can increase this space between the italicized word and the non-italicized word. See Setting Italic Correction.
- Letter spacing You can specify the amount of spacing between letters in text. See Setting Letter Spacing.
- Overline You can specify that a horizontal line should be placed above text (opposite of underlined text). See Setting an Overline on Text.
- Size You can specify the size of text, choosing from many different units of measurement. See Setting the Font Size.
- Smallcaps You can specify that text should be displayed in all capital letters, but in a small size. See Setting Smallcaps on Text.
- Strikethrough You can specify that a horizontal line should be added through the middle of the text, providing the effect of content that has been "striked through." See Setting a Strikethrough Effect on Text.
- Subscript You can apply a subscript effect to topic text, where some text appears below the level of the other characters (e.g., H₂O). Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to highlight the text and then click the Subscript button . However, you can also change the properties of a different tag so that it appears as subscript text. See Setting Subscript Text.
- Superscript You can apply a superscript effect to text, where some text appears above the regular text (e.g., X²). Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to highlight the text and click the Superscript button . However, you can also change the properties of a different tag so that it appears as superscript text. See Setting Superscript Text.
- Underline You can easily underline text. See Setting Underlined Text.
- Word spacing You can specify the amount of spacing between words. See Setting Word Spacing.
Text boxes
- Background After you insert a text box, you can add background settings to the text box. This includes the ability to specify a color, an image, and a repeating pattern for the background image. See Adding Backgrounds to Text Boxes.
- Borders After you insert a text box, you can add borders around it, specifying the border size, color, and type. See Adding Borders to Text Boxes.
- Hyphenation After you insert a text box, you can adjust the way that the text within it is hyphenated. See Setting Hyphenation in Text Boxes.
- Margins After you insert a text box, you can adjust the margins around it so that there is extra space above, below, to the right, or to the left of it. See Adding Margins to Text Boxes.
- Padding After you insert a text box, you can add padding (i.e., extra space) between the text box's border and the text within it. See Adding Padding to Text Boxes.
- Positioning After you insert a text box, you can adjust its positioning on the page. This includes the ability to float text boxes to the left or right, or even outside of page frames. See Positioning Text Boxes.
- Size After you insert a text box, you can adjust its width and height. See Specifying the Size of Text Boxes.
Topics
- Background You can change the background color for topics by using the <body> style or classes of that style. If you want the background color to be applied to all topics using a particular style sheet, you can use the main <body> style. If you want to change the background color for only some topics, create and use a class of the <body> style. See Applying Color to the Background for Topics.
  
  You can also add a background image on topics by using the <body> style tag. See Setting a Background Image on Topics.
- Nonscrolling region For online output you can specify that a certain portion of the content (usually a heading and breadcrumbs, if included) should remain fixed in place. This means that when the end user scrolls down to see more content, the fixed areas do not scroll with the rest of the text. You can see an example of this in any Flare online Help topic. See Creating a Nonscrolling Region.
- Toolbars You can use the <Madcap|topicToolbarProxy> style to change the look of the container holding the generated toolbar. See Using Styles to Determine the Look of Topic Toolbars.

Where's My Style?

When applying styles to content, you may notice from time to time that the style you are looking for is not available from the drop-down list or Styles window pane when you try to select it. This can occur if you have not yet made any modifications to the style in the Stylesheet Editor. Therefore, before applying a style to content, make sure you first provide the necessary settings for the style. See Editing Styles.

Another possible reason for this has to do with the location of the cursor in the topic. Flare realizes where the cursor is placed and knows that only certain styles should be applied at that location.

example

Let's say that you have your cursor on a regular paragraph and you want to apply a list <li> style to it in order to turn it into the beginning of a bulleted list. Because it is not yet a list item, but rather a simple paragraph, you will not see your <li> style when you try to select it. Instead, you will see several paragraph styles in the list. In order to use the list style, you first need to turn the paragraph into a bulleted list item, by clicking the bullet button in the Text Format toolbar or selecting an option such as Format>List>Bullet List.

Here is another example. If multiple paragraphs are selected or if the cursor is simply placed somewhere within a paragraph, the paragraph styles are shown in the Styles window pane. If only a portion of a paragraph is selected, the character styles are shown.

If you still do not see your style available for selection, try closing and re-launching Flare.

Skin Styles

In addition to topic and table styles, you can use skin styles. For certain elements of the online output window (e.g., navigation pane, TOC or browse sequence entries, index keywords) you can determine skin style settings. You can edit styles in Standard skins to make changes for WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, WebHelp AIR, DotNet Help, and HTML Help outputs. In addition, you can edit styles in WebHelp Mobile skins to make changes for WebHelp Mobile output. When it comes to the Standard skin, please note that the vast majority of these skin styles pertain to WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, or WebHelp AIR output. Some of the settings (those that have to do with MadCap Feedback and toolbar items) also apply to HTML Help. DotNet Help output only supports skin style changes for toolbar items. See Specifying Skin Style Settings.

Note: For additional help on styles, you can download the Flare Styles Guide: