By default, new topics always have a "header", displayed  in a separate editing box above the main topic editor. You can turn the header off if you want, creating topics without headers.

Initially, this header contains the title of the topic, formatted with the standard Heading1 style and with the background color set in the HTML topic page template. You can also add other content, including graphics, hyperlinks etc.

Header formatting, background colors and additional content are only supported in electronic help formats (HTML Help, WebHelp, eBooks and Visual Studio Help). ePub eBooks have limited or no support for additional content. In print-style formats (PDF, RTF, printed manuals) only the plain text from the header is exported when you publish and the formatting is defined separately.

Formatting the header text:

By default the header text has the standard Heading1 style. The easiest way to format your header text is to edit this style in Write > Styles > Edit Styles. Then all new headers will automatically have the selected formatting. You can format headers manually by selecting the text and using the formatting tools in the Write tab if you want, but then you must do this separately for every single topic.

Setting the header background color:

In most electronic output formats the header background color is defined by the HTML topic page template. In the Project Explorer go to Configuration > HTML Page Templates and select the Default template. Then you can set the background colors for the header and the topic body. The background colors you set in the template are automatically displayed in the editor.

See Background colors and help viewers for more details on this.

To turn off the header for a topic just deselect the Topic has a separate header checkbox below the topic editor on the left. This will create a topic without a header in your published output.

Warning: Turning off the header deletes any additional content you have added to the header box. If you turn the header on again the box will only contain the standard topic title, taken from the topic's TOC entry. The content will not be lost while you are still editing the current topic (you can restore it by reactivating the checkbox) but once you leave the current topic it will be deleted permanently.

You can insert any content in the topic header box that you would normally insert in the main body of the topic, including graphics, hyperlinks and so on. This content will be published with the header in electronic formats (HTML Help, WebHelp, eBooks and Visual Studio Help) but not in print-style formats (PDF, RTF, printed manuals).

Note that content added to the header will only be displayed in the current topic. If you want to include the same content in every topic (for example a logo) you need to edit the HTML topic page template and add the content to the header section of the template. See Using HTML Templates for more details.

If you want to include additional with your headers in PDF and printed manuals you need to add it to the header definitions in the print manual template – see PDF & Printed Manuals for details.

The topic header and its formatting and background color are not exported or used in PDF, RTF and printed manuals. In these formats only the plain text topic title is exported, the formatting is applied with the print manual template for PDF and printed manuals and with the options in Configuration > Publishing Options > Word RTF for RTF.

In RTF only the header text from the TOC topic title is used. In PDF you can use either the TOC topic title or the text from the topic header (if it is different). This is done by selecting either the <%HEADINGx%> variables in the template for the TOC topic title or the <%HEADINGLONGx%> variables for the text from the header box.

See PDF & Printed Manuals for details on accessing and editing print manual templates for PDF.