issue with table borders in rh8 evaluation

[kmaddox1]

I'm currently evaluating Robohelp HTML 8 and am playing with table styles. The version I downloaded from the Adobe web site last week is RH 8.0.023, though apparently there's a more up-to-date release.

The problem I'm seeing is that the border definitions for my new table styles don't appear to be working correctly--I see random thick borders both in RH and in preview mode. This occurs with my custom table styles regardless of how many times I try to modify each separate border setting (left, right, first row, even rows, etc). In addition, borders that appear okay on the RH templates get screwed up as soon as I duplicate an RH table style to add my own modifications, such as duplicating the SimpleGridBlack table style and adding a Fill Color to the top row. The same problem occurs both for new tables created in RH8 and existing tables from my RH7 help files (have been clicking "Clean Table Inline Formatting" when applying the style to pre-existing tables).

I even tried updating the table definition in the CSS, but I'm still seeing random thick and thin borders.

So two questions:

How do I create a simple table style in RH 8 with uniformly thin borders everywhere and a gray shaded heading?

Can I download the 8.0.1 patch for RH8 without having to purchase the software (I'm still withholding judgment til I get this to work)?

Thanks.

[Amebr]

Perhaps see if the details in this post help:

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I think you should be able to apply the patches - just try Help > Updates and see what happens. (Personally I think it would be very unfair if you couldn't as the patches fix some nasty problems.) From memory you'll have to check after each install to ensure you have all the patches - I think it's up to 8.0.2 and they need to be installed in order.

Amebr

[Peter Grainge]

1] Yes you can and should apply the patches before judging.

2] The tables may look wrong in the Design Editor because of the old code. You will probably find they are fine in the output.

3] Make a backup copy first, then run Update DHTML effects. It cleans up more than DHTML. It may make no difference, it may help.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[kmaddox1]

Thanks for the information on how to apply the update. I didn't see the Help > Update link and there were no obvious instructions on Adobe's site to upgrade the software after downloading the eval. My tables are definitely working a lot better after applying the 8.0.2 patch, but I'm still having problems applying a gray background to my table headings. I'm sure it's operator error, but I could use some help trying to figure out how all the new selections in RH8 interact to control table borders. It seems far from intuitive.

Here's what I've done:

1. Applied the 8.0.1 and 8.0.2 patches
2. Run the Update DHTML Effects tool on my test project (one originally created in RH7)
3. Inserted a new 3x3 table and select the default SimpleGridBlack table style. This table displays as I would expect in the viewer and in the output.
4. Selected the table and clicked Format > Style > Table Style.
5. Right clicked SimpleGridBlack and selected Duplicate.
6. Created a new table style called TableNew
7. Right clicked TableNew and selected Edit. The table preview shows a simple black border around everything.
8. Selected First Row from the drop-down list. Everything still looks ok. Top-Left Corner, Solid, 1px is shown as the border type for this row

Here's where things get screwy:

Since I want to apply a gray background color to my table headings (first row), I:

1. Clicked the Change Hightlight Color icon to the right of the font.
2. Selected a gray highlight. Notice that the far right vertical border in the table preview is now missing (presumably because Top-Left Corner was selected).
3. So, realizing that wasn't the right way to do it, I re-select "Automatic" instead of the gray highlight. Alas and alack, the far-right vertical border and the bottom horizontal borders are still missing AND the vertical rules in the header are now misaligned (in design view, preview mode, and output):

I've tried lots more stuff to get the borders/shading to work correctly but nothing I'm doing seems to work right.  How is this supposed to be done? Would it be easier simply to edit the CSS? (see below)?

Thanks.

PS FWIW, here's the table definition from the CSS. There are no additional table formatting codes in the topic HTML:

}

table.TableNew

td {

padding-left: 10px;

padding-right: 10px;

padding-top: 0px;

padding-bottom: 0px;

}

table.TableNew

tr.t1Row td {

border-right-style: Solid;

border-right-width: 1px;

border-right-color: #000000;

border-bottom-style: Solid;

border-bottom-width: 1px;

border-bottom-color: #000000;

font-family: "Times New Roman";

font-size: 12pt;

}

table.TableNew

tr.t2Row td {

border-right-style: Solid;

border-right-width: 1px;

border-right-color: #000000;

border-bottom-style: Solid;

border-bottom-width: 1px;

border-bottom-color: #000000;

}

table.TableNew

{

padding: 0px;

border-top: Solid 1px #000000;

border-left: Solid 1px #000000;

x-border-spacing: 0px;

x-row-pat-1: 1;

x-row-pat-1-name: t1Row;

x-row-pat-count: 2;

x-row-pat-2: 1;

x-row-pat-2-name: t2Row;

x-1st-row: 1;

x-1st-row-name: t1st;

}

table.TableNew

tr.t1st td {

border-left-style: Solid;

border-left-width: 1px;

border-left-color: #000000;

border-top-style: Solid;

border-top-width: 1px;

border-top-color: #000000;

font-family: "Times New Roman";

font-size: 12pt;

}

[kmaddox1]

figured it out...the thread "RH8 Tables - formatting" had the information I needed. Table borders still seem buggy, but I have enough to move forward with my eval...