You are here: Best Practices > Best Practice—Use Master Style Sheets

Best Practice—Use Master Style Sheets

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.

Applying style sheets at the topic level is attractive because you can associate different style sheets with different topics, even associating multiple style sheets with a topic. However, in most cases you will use a single style sheet for an entire project or target. Therefore, it is usually better to use a master style sheet at one of those levels. That way, you do not need to manually associate the style sheet with a topic before using the styles in it.

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.

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.