The following topics are covered in this section:
A template is a set of formatting instructions you can associate with a source document. When you check a document into Content Server, you either associate it with a default conversion template, or you can create a new customized template.
The following template options are available:
HTML Conversion templates: These template types can be configured in a cross-platform editor.
Script templates: These run with default settings, and can be edited with a text editor.
After you have chosen a template type to associate with your document, and named the template, you can edit the template. The HTML Conversion Editor is used to customize the appearance of native documents converted to an HTML format, and control the look and feel of the web pages you create.
To turn a source document into a web page, you can use the default settings to perform a conversion. Alternatively, you can create a template, associate it with the document, and then edit the template.
The HTML Conversion Editor's primary goal is setting options that allow you to produce faithful representations of source files using the HTML, GIF, JPEG, and PNG formats. You can use the HTML Conversion Editor to set various options that affect the content and structure of the output.
The HTML Conversion Editor is Java-based and can run in any browser instance where a JRE is present. It is downloaded onto the client machine when the Edit Template button is clicked on either the Edit Templates page or Template Selection Rules page. With some browsers, such as Firefox, you may be prompted for how to handle the file dc_hcmapedit.jnlp. The correct way to open this file is with Java(TM) Web Start Launcher (default).
Here are some of the advantages of the HTML Conversion Editor:
When launching within Content Server, the parent browser window can navigate away, yet the HTML Conversion Editor stays open, and can still save changes to the template.
HTML Conversion Templates are generated as XML files; the Tools menu option provides a view of the Template XML being generated by the editor front end.
HTML Conversion Templates can have multiple layouts. One template can provide different layout types for different document types.
Native doc metadata and optional custom properties can be placed in a converted document's body or metatags.
The HTML Conversion Editor's Navigation Elements are greatly improved over the previous navigation elements. They allow navigation to be linked directly to particular styles.
The HTML Conversion Editor allows the use of an external CSS file.
The HTML Conversion Editor gives you broad control over how a template interprets a source document and converts it to HTML.
There are four main HTML Conversion Editor pages for editing templates:
Document Formatting: This page contains several tabs that allow you to customize the formatting of your converted files according to file type.
Document Handling, for more information.
Document Properties: This section of the HTML Conversion Editor allows you to specify predefined and custom document properties to be placed in the head or body of the document.
See Document Properties, for more information.
Generated Content: Generated content is made up of two kinds of elements: Text Elements, which define special formatting in the output; and Navigation Elements, which help automatically generate navigation links.
See Generated Content, for more information.
Output Pages: The Output Pages section contains options for defining HTML Output, including markup items, and formatting of text, page layouts, and navigation layouts.
See Output Pages, for more information.