Misaligned step number when graphic is present

[Carl]

Here is a minor but annoying visual glitch that I can't figure out how to resolve. In a numbered step, if there is a graphic in the line (for example, a button illustration), the line is :pushed down: to accommodate the taller graphic, but step number stays in the same place. This results in an awkward "misalignment" that doesn't make us look very professional. Please see the two attachments.

This happens whether the topic is a Task and the line is a "step" tag, or whether it's a Concept topic and I use "<ol>". Note that it is aligned correctly in the WebHelp version.

Is there a way to force the step number to stay aligned with the rest of the line?

Misaligned step number.png

Topic in Author mode.png

[ionela]

Hi,

Thank you for your feedback.

Could you please let us know the transformation scenario you run to obtain this output? Also, what version of oXygen XML do you use?

Regards,
Ionela

[Carl]

I am using the Global transformation "DITA Map PDF - based on XSL-FO - Copy". My version of Oxygen is XML Author 21.1, build 2019061404.

[Radu]

Hi Carl,

This has been reported as an issue on the publishing engine's issues list before but we have not managed to fix it:

https://github.com/dita-ot/dita-ot/issues/1241

Maybe you could try decreasing the image height when using it.

Regards,
Radu

[Radu]

Hi,

One more thing, if you publish to PDF using our "DITA Map PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS" transformation scenario the step number should be properly aligned to the text baseline.

Regards,
Radu

[Carl]

Thanks, Radu. I tried the HTML5 version and it does align properly. I will look to see if we can adapt that for our template.

I am new to DITA--what's the difference between "FO" and "HTML5"? Why would I use one over the other?

[Radu]

Hi Carl,

The XSL-FO based PDF output is the default output which can be built with the DITA Open Toolkit publishing engine (even if you download it separately). Customizing this output requires knowledge of XSLT and XSL-FO (the intermediary XML format from which the PDF will be built).

A couple of years ago we added the "DITA Map PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS" output. It's based on a plugin developed by us and it uses CSS to style the published PDF output. And this is one of our main future improvement directions. Using CSS to style the PDF output is easier, we can also fix various PDF processor bugs (like the one you reported on this thread). Also we plan to create an online skin builder to customize the CSS used for PDF printing.
Using the HTML5 & CSS to PDF is free if you publish to PDF from inside Oxygen but it requires a commercial license if you want to publish from a command line (using an external script on the server side for example).

Regards,
Radu