activate HTMLBlockText

[V12CatMan]

Hi Gary,
Have a look at this option. I have replaced the * with a placeholder containing <br>.

James - an interesting workaround, sort of. But you have to string the text out in one line for it to work. Try creating a text box with 2 lines in it - WYSIWYG - both centered in the box (header style!), but one sentence
e.g.

Welcome to Smith Heating and Air Conditioning
Serving New York City for 25 years.

This needs to be formatted as an H1 and show exactly as you see it with one line of H1 source.

Also the style capability was intended to allow web site wide changes, including headings, without adversely affecting web standards in any way.

I believe this is a code design flaw.

Thanks
Gary

[Drwyd]

I wouldn't say it was a design flaw of Xara's export filter. The requirements for simplicity (no knowledge of HTML or CSS needed) may have necessitated many compromises, fixed width and absolute positioning for example. The htmlblocktext trick is itself an undocumented feature that is not guaranteed to produce pixel perfect results.

[V12CatMan]

I wouldn't say it was a design flaw of Xara's export filter. The requirements for simplicity (no knowledge of HTML or CSS needed) may have necessitated many compromises, fixed width and absolute positioning for example. The htmlblocktext trick is itself an undocumented feature that is not guaranteed to produce pixel perfect results.

There have been many opinions on whether the use of header tags (h1-h6) does or does not assist with SEO. Pushing that aside Xara has implemented it and it only serves one real purpose - SEO. It is a design flaw because people are using the product and creating sites that might have multiple h1s on a page - clearly accepted as an SEO No-No.

I am a big Xara fan but they will need to fix this as there is no workaround - especially in view of the "simplicity" requirement you correctly describe. I will be upset if we have to wait for another upgrade to get this feature working correctly. I will submit a support ticket - I just wanted to confirm I was not overlooking something.

Thanks
Gary

[zaphodeist]

Sorry, could you clarify for me? Are you talking about multiple H1s on a page or multiple H1s using different fonts, size, etc on a page? Can't see how Xara can 'fix' the former - it's down to the user and appears to be ok anyway - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM

[Drwyd]

Two contiguous H1 tags are unlikely to cause any problems. It's not how many you use, it is how you use them and you/Xara are using them in an entirely acceptable way - as headings.

If you want to be super safe:-

• use one H1 tag for the overall title of the page
• A H2 tag for section headings
• A H3 for the second line (section sub heading)

[V12CatMan]

Sorry, could you clarify for me? Are you talking about multiple H1s on a page or multiple H1s using different fonts, size, etc on a page? Can't see how Xara can 'fix' the former - it's down to the user and appears to be ok anyway - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM

I'm talking about creating a two or more line h1 header in Xara and the output created has separate h1 code for each line in the header.

Thanks for posting that link. Interesting. I still believe the output should create one h1 for each actual composite header. If you were to watch this video and then create 2 headers on your home page with each one being a 3 line paragraph, you would end up with 6 h1s instead of 2. Clearly not what you want. For now I am not using the header option to be on the safe side. I did open a ticket and I do believe Xara will correct this at some point.

Thanks
Gary