Add a customized HTML template - On Premises: 6.4

Publishing

Use your own custom HTML templates for greater control over the appearance of your Topics, Table of Contents, and Index in HTML, XHTML, JavaHelp, and Oracle Help for Java.

For example, you may want to add a banner-like graphic or logo that appears at the top of every page and above the Topic Heading, or a Footer at the bottom of your page containing copyright information using a custom body_template.htm file.

To add your own customized HTML template:

  1. Develop your custom HTML template outside of Author-it in the tool of your choice.

    The template should reference the stylesheet used by Author-it, or your styles won't be found, by adding the tag: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css"> within the pages Header section.

  2. Use Tables, Javascript, and/or any HTML code to control the placement of data and the exact look and feel you want.
  3. Author-it looks for the following tags:

<title>
</title>

Defines the HTML Page Title that displays in the title bar of the browser.

Substitution resolves in the following order:

  1. As the Title defined in the Media object Web tab.
  2. If you select the Start New Page checkbox, and specify the Page Title under the topic object Web tab, it uses this title.
  3. If neither of the above are specified, then it uses the HTML Heading of the topic.

<pagetitle>

This can appear any number of times. It is replaced with the same text as <title> is above.

<aitdata>

This tag acts as a placeholder for the Author-it data. This placeholder is replaced with all the published HTML code that makes up your Author-it topic. If the system can't find this tag, the data is placed directly before the closing </body> tag.

<SYS_TOPIC_BODY>

This is an HTML template placeholder for adding topic content; defined in a custom body_template using a namespace declaration: <

Notes:

  • Use this variable to add the topic text (without the topic heading) to an HTML template.
  • Use this variable instead of <
  • Only use this variable once inside an HTML template. If you use it more than once only the first instance will be resolved.
  1. Specify the file name and path to your precoded HTML template in the Media object/s used by your topic, table of contents and index objects.
  2. If your HTML template refers to any external resources, like graphics, include them using the Additional File property in the Media object. Author-it copies these files to the publishing folder at the same level as your HTML pages, so make sure they are referenced properly, not to a sub-folder like "Images", or "Graphics".
  3. Once your HTML template has been specified, Author-it uses it when creating your HTML pages instead of creating its own default page using the settings in the Meta Data, Background, and Text Colors tabs.