CSS Problems: Extra "margin-left: 8px" being added to bold face command.

[modehead1231]

I'm having a unique and frustrating problem with a RoboHelp project.

When I apply Bold face to text in a numbered or bulleted text, RoboHelp applies the following code: <span style="margin-left: 8px; font-weight: bold;">

I cannot understand why the style="margin-left: 8px clause is inserted into the code.  It's causing a large amount of white space before and after every bolded item, and fixing it manually is not a great option for various reasons.

When I apply Bold face to text outside of lists, the style="margin-left: 8px clause is not inserted.

When I click the Bold button (or press Ctrl+B) on selected text, I'd like RoboHelp to add the minimal code necssary: <span style="font-weight: bold;">

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Notes: I inhertied this project with multiple style sheets, including old .kadov styles and at least seven CSS files. I condensed this down to one CSS file and tried to clean up the file as much as possible. I'm using RoboHelp 8.0.2.

[modehead1231]

I forgot to add this point as well:

Any unbolded text that follows the mis-tagged text I described above is always preceded by another

<span style="margin-left: 8px;" > tag... adding a 8px border to the right of the bolded text.

FWIW, There is no 8px designation at all in the Style Sheet.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I don't know much about CSS coding, but I think you're adding "in-line" styling that will override any direction from the CSS. Use of "in-line" styling is not considered a "best practice."

[modehead1231]

I'm not manually applying any kind of styling.  I meant to get that across: I attempt to bold a word in RH's Design view, and this extra code is added. 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I believe you are - if you weren't, you would have defined a style - maybe called "bullet_bold" or something that reflects what it does and apply that, instead of using the icons in the Design View.

[modehead1231]

I promise, this is my workfow:

1. In Design view, I click the Numbered List icon in the Formatting tool bar to create a numbered list.
2. I enter text for a few steps.
3. I bold some of that text by clicking the Bold icon in the Formatting tool bar.

And when I look at the HTML view of the work I just did, the span styles described above are applied.

I cannot find any information in the style sheet that is manipulating the bold character style (matter of fact, a search for "8px" returns no results).

Is there a setting somewhere, either at the project level, style sheet level, or master page level that would cause this to happen?

[Peter Grainge]

Create a new project with one topic and set up some text and a list.

Do what you are doing now and verify that applying bold does not have this problem. Then add your CSS to the project and in a second new topic that you have first linked to your CSS, repeat the process. I am expecting the problem to occur.

Please post back when you have done that.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[modehead1231]

Hi Peter,

I tried what you suggested, but the problem didn't re-occur.

I've found a work-around that sounds risky, but appears to have worked fine:

I noticed that none of the .CSS files in the Project Folder (or on the PC containing the folder) contain the text "8px", which leads me to believe that the CSS file wasn't directly causing the spacing issue.

So, I tried this: I removed the "style="margin-left: 8px" part of the code from the offending topics using a Global Find and Replace (Don't worry, I didn't hit Replace All).

I'm honestly not sure what was causing the additional code. I don't consider this issue resolved, but I'm under deadline and I've got it under control for now.

Thanks!

[Amebr]

I have no advice, but just thought I'd let you know it's not just you - we have "margin-left:40px" randomly around bold text. This is a problem we've been having since at least RH6, but haven't been able to reliably reproduce it. And the worst bit is you can't see the incorrect margin in Design view, only in the compiled output. :S

[Captiv8r]

Hi Amebr

Does this video help any?

http://youtu.be/hv9T5cJxUgo

Cheers... Rick

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[Amebr]

Thanks Rick.

I don't change the margins using the ruler and I as far as I remember there weren't any paragraphs in the topic with similar margins set. However, I'll certainly keep in mind next time it happens, to confirm that this is the case.

[modehead1231]

Thanks for posting this video. I'm glad to see that the problem has a name and others have encountered it.

Like Amebr, my problem isn't a result of manual modification fo indentation on paragraphs. I inherited a RH project with multiple paragraph styles, and when I add bolded text to a numbered list using some of those paragraph styles, the phantom span tag (or the undesirable part of it, as bold is part of the tag) is added.