HTML output reference for designing templates

Review this information to learn more about generating HTML documents with Rational® Publishing Engine.

Purpose

To output the template as an HTML web page.

Supported content viewers

For a list of products that are supported for viewing this output type:
  1. Open the System Requirements for Rational Publishing Engine.
  2. In the By type section, click Software.
  3. Scroll to the Content viewers section. Product names and versions that are supported for viewing Rational Publishing Engine output are listed.

Template elements

Table 1. Template elements available to use for the HTML output format
Element Description Can contain other elements Can contain data
Paragraph icon Paragraph Use to group a section of elements. Adds a carriage return around its child elements in the output. Yes No
Container icon Container Use to group a section of elements. Cannot be styled and does not affect the formatting of the output.
When used inside other elements, the child elements available to use within the container might be limited. For example:
  • Inside rows, containers can host cells only
  • Inside lists, containers can host list-detail elements only
Yes No
Text icon Text The content renders with the same, specified formatting. No Yes
Styled text icon Styled text A block of text that can have unique formatting on individual words. Use bold, italic, underline, strikeout, or color formatting on a selection of words within the element. The text is static. No Yes
Hyperlink icon Hyperlink Creates a hyperlink in the output. The hyperlink can point to a location inside the document or to an external location. No Yes
Image icon Image Displays a .gif, .png, .jpg, emf, or wmf image in the output. The report designer can specify the image path in the template or the report generator can specify the path at run time. No Yes
Table icon Table Creates a table in the output. A table can contain rows or container elements. Yes No
Row icon Row Creates a row in the current table. Yes No
Cell icon Cell Creates a cell in the current row of the current table. Yes No
List icon List Creates a bulleted or numeric list in the output. Yes No
List detail icon List detail Creates a list item in the current list in the output. Yes No
Data Source configuration icon Data source configuration See Adding a data source configuration element. No No
Include file icon Include file Includes the specified file in the output as an INCLUDETEXT field.
  • Included file can have a .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf extension.
  • For Microsoft Word output, you must update all fields with the macro to see the included file.
  • For Legacy PDF, HTML, and XSL-FO output, the included file is a hyperlink to the document.
No Yes
Bookmark icon Bookmark Defines a bookmark in the document. The name of the generated bookmark is the content for the bookmark. When generating the documents, Rational Publishing Engine generates a unique name for each bookmark. The name is based on the name provided at design time and a unique identifier generated at run time. No Yes
Page Break icon Page Break Adds a page break to the output. No No
Section Break icon Section Break Adds a section break to the output. No No
Table of Contents icon Table of Contents Adds a table of contents to the output. No No

Element properties

Review these notes to understand more about specifying the element properties in templates that are designed to generate HTML documents.
Table 2. Cell properties
Cell properties Notes®
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Cell alignment This property specifies the position of the text within the cell.
Cell width You can specify cell widths in pixels, points, or percents.
Table 3. Figure caption properties
Figure caption properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Field code Do not use for this output format.
Table 4. Image properties
Image properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Content Supported image formats:
  • Internet Explorer: .bmp, .emf, .gif, .jpg, .png, .svg (version 9 and later), .wmf
  • Firefox: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png, .svg
Table 5. List-detail properties
List-detail properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Table 6. Page number properties
Page number properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Table 7. Paragraph properties
Paragraph properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Paragraph alignment Space the text across the page with a certain alignment.

Left, right, and center alignment, creates uneven paragraph edges, fitting as many words in a paragraph as possible. Justify creates even paragraph edges by inserting additional space between words on all lines except the last line. Distributed is similar to justify, except that space is also inserted between words in the last line of the paragraph.

Widow/orphan control Do not use for this output format.
Table 8. Row properties
Row properties Notes
Row break across pages Do not use for this output format.
Table 9. Table properties
Table properties Notes
Autofit to contents Resizes the table to fit the content each cell contains. When you use this property, also set the Resize to fit contents property to true.
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Cell spacing Do not use for this output format.
Fixed cell width in column Specify a value in pixels to ensure that all of the cells in a column are the same width.
Resize to fit contents When set to true, lines do not break unless a space is present. When you do not have space, lines do not break and the column width is increased to the width of the text. If autofit to contents is set, you must set resize to fit contents to true.

When set to false, the column width is fixed and the lines break regardless of the spaces used or the length of the text. Also, the table auto fit property is ignored.

Table auto fit When set to true, the table is resized to fit the width of the page. When resize to fit contents is also set to true, cell widths are ignored and the table is resized to match the content.

You cannot enter fixed column width as a value. Use the fixed cell width property instead.

Table 10. Table caption properties
Table caption properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Field code Do not use for this output format.
Table 11. Text properties
Text properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.
Table 12. Total pages number properties
Total pages number properties Notes
Border width You must specify a value for the border width to create a border in the output.

Include file element

You can choose to link the file or physically embed the file into your output document. However, the way that include file elements are handled depends on the output format and the location from which you are retrieving the file. For Legacy PDF, HTML, and XSL-FO outputs, the included file is always a hyperlink.

Heading styles

To use the predefined heading styles for HTML (H1, H2, ... , 9), use the style name 1, 2, to 9.

Rational Publishing Engine styles versus external styles

Use external styles, which are defined in a style sheet, as much as possible. This approach allows you to quickly change the appearance of the output document and enforces a uniform look across the company.

Unicode data in output

All Unicode data is rendered if the font that is used supports Unicode. For HTML output, if you used a non-Unicode font, change the font family in the style sheet after document generation.

OLE objects

You can extract embedded objects, such as Object linking and embedding (OLE objects), from attributes in a data source. OLE objects are always rendered as images in HTML output though, because the format does not support OLE objects.

Lists in paragraphs

When you are designing templates that are to be used to generate HTML output, avoid nesting list elements in paragraph elements.

Lists inherit a designated set of formatting properties that interfere with certain paragraph properties. For example, paragraph properties like background color and borders are affected when the paragraph contains a list. Place list elements after paragraph elements in your template to avoid these issues.


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