Known problems and limitations

The following table provides information on known problems and limitations in Rational Publishing Engine.
Component Known problem/limitation
All output formats All cells in merged groups must have the same border properties to produce uniform output.
All output formats Overlapped merged cells groups are not supported. If two merged groups have common cells, the output behavior is undefined.

For HTML, Word, Xsl-Fo: The text from any cell within a merged group of cells that is not in the first cell of that merged group is lost.

All output formats Master pages are not supported when used on table child elements, list details, or containers hosted in tables, rows, or lists.
All output formats In images, combining maximum width and maximum height properties with width and height properties results in undefined behavior.
All output formats Setting the target region for an element to a region contained in that same element results in undefined behavior.
All output formats Span with cells that are not written in a table is not supported. If a cell has the col span or row span property set, and the column index plus the col span value, or the row index plus the row span value refers to a cell that does not exist in the table, the result is undefined.
All output formats Having more than one Table of Contents, Table of Figures, or Table of Tables for a template results in duplicate data.
All output formats If a child list within a multilevel list has no text before it, an extra bullet appears on the output before that list. The extra bullet is generated by the parent list-detail.
All output formats If an element has both a master page and a target region, the results are undefined.
All output formats Child elements inherit only font formatting.
All output formats Styled text supports only font formatting.
All output formats Using invalid values for formatting properties results in undefined behavior.
Document Template The table cell size cannot be relative to the table size.
HTML output For cell border style double the border width value of 1 makes the cell borders invisible, because the two borders on each side are collapsed. Setting the cell border width to 3 makes the double border style visible in HTML. Thus, the table resembles a Word table with a border of 1.
PDF output When the header and footer content overlap, the PDF document cannot be written. Design the template and its master pages so that the header and footer do not overlap.
PDF output Bookmarks and regions add extra blank lines in the output in special circumstances.
PDF output If a heading is two or more levels from the previous heading, the heading numbering continues the numbering of the previous heading that has the same level. For example, 1, 1.1, 2, 2.2.1, instead of 1, 1.1, 2, 2.1.1 .
PDF output Lists support Arabic numbers and bullets only.
PDF output If an internal hyperlink targets a bookmark located after the first text element in a cell, and if there is no other element occurs after the bookmark, the PDF document cannot be written. Setting the bookmark as the first element in the cell solves the problem.
PDF output If the page margins overlap, the PDF output fails.
PDF output If a referred target region does not exist, the PDF output fails.
PDF output If a nested table contains cells with the cell width set, and a column in that table has no cell width set on its cells, then the nested table overlaps the parent's borders. The workaround is to explicitly set the dimension for each cell.
PDF output Very large images and tables slow down the PDF generation process.
PDF output A region is always written in a new section.
PDF output Paragraph borders are not displayed. As a workaround, create a one row table and hide the left and right borders. You can now include a paragraph which will have a top and bottom border. For more information, see Displaying paragraph borders in a PDF output
  Headings do not support indentation.
Word, PDF output If an image has a large ratio between its two dimensions, and if the maximum dimensions are set with very close values, the output image might not have the expected dimensions. Setting one maximum dimension solves this issue.
Word output Different numbering types on a multilevel list are not supported (for example, arabic on level 1 and bullet on level 2).
Word output Restart paragraph numbering is not supported
Word output If a multilevel list does not end with a list-detail at level 1, the numbering for the missing list-detail appears on the output.
Word output A bookmark name must be shorter than 20 characters.
Word output The palette for text background color (highlight color) is limited in Word. The closest approximation to the chosen color is displayed.
Xsl-Fo output If a heading is located before the table of contents element, the numbering of the hyperlink in the table of contents is missing in the output.
Xsl-Fo output The header and footer's left and right margin are not modified when the page margin properties of the master page element are modified.

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