Style Formatting Controlled by the webhelp.css

Using Author-it you'll be used to working with text and styles. If you've published to the online formats you'll be used to changing the look of the text by changing attributes in the style objects. When you publish and view your book you see the changes you made in the style object.

The webhelp.css file

The publishing process for Author-it Web Help is slightly different from publishing HTML Pages or HTML Help. When you create your Web Help topics in your library you'll apply styles to the text as normal, for example using Body Text, List Bullet, Special Bold, and so on. The webhelp.css defines styles that are specific to the Web Help templates, and overwrites some styles published from Author-it. The webhelp.css gives the output its distinctive look.

Important: To work with and modify style sheets, you will require a good working knowledge of style sheets.

When you want to make look and feel changes you will generally be making them either in Author-it by changing Style objects, or by editing the webhelp.css. The following styles in the webhelp.css overwrite the the styles from Author-it:

• Table Text
• Table Heading
• Table Body Text
• Table List Bullet
• Related Heading
• Related Item
• Body Text
• List Bullet
• List Bullet 2
• List Alpha
• List Alpha 2
• List Number
• List Number 2
• List Note
• Expanding Block
• Index Link
• Heading 1
• Index 1

Modifying styles directly in the style sheet

When you publish books to the HTML outputs, Author-it creates a style sheet containing the attributes for each style used in your book. The attributes are taken from the Style object's Web tab. You can use the attributes from the stylesheet.css to update the styles or to add styles that are not already included in the webhelp.css.

To Modify the Style Sheet:

1. Open the webhelp.css style sheet in Notepad or an HTML editor.
2. Change and existing style by modifying the attributes, or add a new style to the style sheet.
3. Save the changes.