Style Sheets

The publishing process for Author-it presentations is slightly different from publishing HTML or HTML Help in that style values are taken from pre-defined style sheets rather than the style objects in the library. Because of this publishing method, modifications to styles are made directly in the style sheet - changes made in the style objects are not used when the presentation is published.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), or style sheets for short, are used to separate content (the information) from presentation (the specifications used to control the appearance of the content). In HTML there are different ways of applying specific values for presentation:

• Directly in the HTML page by including the values with the tags at paragraph level or for specific text. The drawback to this method is is it creates complicated HTML code and making a change to values means individual instances of the style must be updated.
• Using an internal style sheet included in head section of each HTML page. The style sheet contains the values for each of the styles used for the page, and the paragraph or text tags include a reference to the style (in the style sheet this is called a selector). Changes are made in the style sheet and all instances of the style are updated in that page.
• Linking to an external style sheet used by a group of HTML pages. Each HTML page using the styles contains a link in its head section to the style sheet. The text in the HTML page includes reference to the style selector. Author-it presentations use this method so changes are only made in one place and used in all pages linking to that style sheet when you publish.

Note: This section introduces some of the basic properties and values involved in customizing style sheets, and gives an overview of the style sheets used in Author-it presentations. To work with and modify style sheets, you will require a good working knowledge of style sheets.