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Creating Table Styles for Print Output

A table style sheet allows you to single-source your formatting by setting the properties in one place and reusing them wherever you insert tables in your project. But what if you want the tables in online output to look one way and the tables in your printed output to look another way? One solution is to insert two different tables (one for online output and another for print) throughout your project and then use condition tags on them. A better solution is to insert a single table at each location, using a special version of the table style for print-based output.

example

Let's say you create a table style sheet with a design that displays the table with alternating green rows. The problem is that for printed output, you need the rows to display in light gray. Therefore, you create another style sheet with the design settings that are appropriate for printed output. When you insert the table into your content (or edit an existing table), you select the original online table style and also select the special print version of the table style. If you generate any targets based on an online format (DotNet Help, HTML Help, WebHelp, WebHelp Plus, WebHelp AIR), the end user will see green rows in the table. However, if you generate any targets based on a print format (Adobe PDF, XHTML, Microsoft XPS, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker), the end user will see light gray rows in the table.

For more information, see About Styles and Style Sheets.

How to create a table style for printed output

Create one table style sheet to be used for online output and another to be used for printed output. See Creating New Style Sheets.

Tip: If you want both tables to share most of the same settings, you can create the online table style sheet first, make a copy of it for the print version, and then edit the settings in the copy as necessary. You can easily do this by selecting the original table style sheet in the Content Explorer (Resources\TableStyles folder), pressing CTRL+C, pressing CTRL+V, and renaming the copy to reflect your needs.
Insert a table into a topic or edit an existing table.

See Inserting Tables into Topics and Editing Table Properties.
In the Insert Table dialog (if inserting a new table) or the Table Properties dialog (if editing an existing table), select the table style to be used for the online output. This can be done on the Basic tab of either dialog, in the Table Style section.
In the dialog, click the Print Style button. The Select Table Style dialog opens.
From the list, select the table style to be used for the printed output.
Click OK.
In the Insert Table or Table Properties dialog, click OK.
Press CTRL+SHIFT+S or click to save your work.

Note: In the XML Editor and in the Preview window, only the online table style is shown. In the generated print output, however, the proper table style is included.

Note: You can also create special print versions of styles for other topic content. See Creating Topic Styles for Print Output.