HTML Templates

Help & Manual uses editable HTML files referred to as "templates" to define the basic layout of your topic pages in your published output. There are templates for your topic pages that are used for all HTML-based output formats and additional templates that are only used for Webhelp output, which are used to define the overall layout (frameset) and the Table of Contents, Search and Index panes in the Webhelp help system generated by Help & Manual.

HTML templates are not help windows!

HTML templates and help windows are completely separate. Help windows are only relevant in HTML Help (CHM) and Winhelp (HLP) output, where they are used to configure the help viewer and for opening linked topics in external windows.

HTML page templates can be assigned to individual topics in the tab behind the editor. Help windows cannot be assigned to individual topics, you can only use them in hyperlinks.

HTML topic page templates

These templates define the layout and appearance of your topic pages in all HTML-based output formats, including the background colors of the topic and the topic header.

By default there is one HTML topic page template called Default that is assigned to all topics. You can edit this template and you can also define as many additional templates as you like and assign them to individual topics, by selecting them in the HTML Page Template: field in the tab behind the editor.

The HTML topic page templates can be accessed in Configuration > HTML Page Templates in the Project Explorer. See Using HTML Templates for more details.

How topic page templates work

If you are familiar with HTML you will know that HTML pages consist of a number of standard sections. The visible content of the page is stored between the <body> and </body> tags. The general page definition and any additional functions (for example the page title, keywords, scripts, search engine information etc.) are stored in the other sections above and sometimes also below this main body section.

When you publish your project to HTML-based output formats the HTML pages for your topics are "assembled" from two components: The HTML page template is taken as the framework and the content from the Help & Manual editor is inserted in this template between the <body> and </body> tags. Individual content outside the body section is inserted with variables. (In fact, the content of your topics is also inserted by a variable called <%TOPIC_TEXT%>, which

Additional Webhelp templates

In addition to the HTML topic page templates there are also four additional HTML templates that are used to configure your Webhelp output. These templates define the layout of the entire help (frameset) and the pages for the Table of Contents, Search and Index panes in your Webhelp output.

These templates can be accessed in Configuration > Publishing Options > Webhelp in the Project Explorer. Unlike the topic page templates there is only one copy of each of these Webhelp templates per project, you cannot define additional versions as you can for HTML topic page templates. However, you can apply different versions to your output with "skins". See Transforming your Output with Skins for details and instructions.