A page style controls all the aspects of a page’s appearance and behavior in the web browser. If you want a folder or a topic to have a particular appearance, you can create a new page style. When you apply the page style to a folder or a topic, all of the stored formatting choices in the style are applied in one step. The page style can be applied manually or automatically when you create new folders or topics.

The page style is not stored in the folder or the topic. This means that when you change an appearance characteristic in a page style, it is automatically applied to all the folders and topics that are marked with that page style. Using page styles thus ensures that all the folders and topics of a specific class have a consistent appearance.

HelpServer’s documentation structure is based on two main objects: folders and topics. Almost any folder or topic can be shown individually in the web browser. Hence, HelpServer uses two kinds of page styles:

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Folder-page styles.

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Topic-page styles.

In addition to folder and topic pages, HelpServer also uses some miscellaneous pages (forms).

The following sections describe the components of a page style in detail.