Using the New HTML Export Features

Using the New HTML Export Options

Beginning with version 2.3.15 of BizInt Smart Charts for Patents, and version 2.4.12 of BizInt Smart Charts for Pharmaceuticals, several new options are available with HTML export. This page explains how to use the options.

Using Active Links in Cells

URLs in cells can now be converted into hyperlinks when you export a chart to HTML. When you export the chart, simply check the Active HTML Links in Cells checkbox. All URLs, as described in the next paragraph, will be presented as links that the user can click.

The types of URLs which are converted are those starting with http:, https:, file:, and mailto:. The protocol (these starting strings) will be removed from the text displayed for the link.

Using Styles

The presentation of a chart and the associated records in HTML can be changed using the new Styles option on the HTML Export panel. Several styles are provided with the software. These are:

Flat - A simple presentation with a white background for all cells and lines around each cell.
Traditional - This corresponds to the printed output from BizInt Smart Charts, and to the old HTML style. There is some use of color, and alternating lines are shaded.
Scaled width - This is the same as the Traditional style, except that the table will scale to fit the width of the user's browser window.
<Original - Don't Use Styles> - This choice does not use styles, but rather generates the same HTML that earlier versions of BizInt Smart Charts created. This is helpful in some situations, described in the next section.

When Not to Use Styles

There are times when you don't want to use styles. In these cases, you want to choose the <Original - Don't Use Styles> Style option.

For example, if the recipient of the chart is using Netscape 4.X, the stylesheets provided won't work. Other programs which don't read the style sheets properly include Microsoft Word 97 and Excel 97.

Creating Your Own Styles

If you don't understand HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, you should probably skip this section.

You can create your own styles by copying and modifying the existing style sheets. The style sheets are files with a .CSS extension, which can be found in the css sub-folder where BizInt Smart Charts is installed (usually c:\bizint\css). The name of the file is the name that will appear in the styles list.

The full text of the stylesheet will be copied into the HTML file, within a <STYLE> tag. This may limit the types of javascript or other tricks that you can employ in your style.

Adding an HTML Header

You can include some custom HTML at the top of your exported HTML. The custom HTML will be inserted at the top of the body, before the chart title. This HTML code must be stored in a file, and will be copied verbatim into the exported HTML.

In order to take advantage of this feature, first create a file containing the HTML fragment that you want to include. For example, the file containing

<P>Contact the library at x5777</P>

could be saved as c:\bizint\header.txt.

Next you need to set up the option in your product INI file. For BizInt Smart Charts for Patents, this file is SCPATENT.INI. For the Drug Pipelines product it is SMRTCHRT.INI. Open the required INI file in Notepad or another editor (you can do this by selecting Run from the Start menu, typing the file name, and pressing the OK button). Look for the section that starts [HTMLExport]. If you can't find this section, go to the end of the file and add a new line reading

[HTMLExport]

Within this section add the following line:

PrologFile=c:\bizint\header.txt

Restart BizInt Smart Charts. The next time you export a chart in HTML, the contents of the file will be inserted into the HTML.

By default the HTML will be displayed as plain text. You may want to create a custom style which includes formatting for this added HTML. If you are going to add a style for the header, you probably want to include the text in a DIV, as shown below:

<DIV class="custom">
<P>Contact the library at x5777</P>
</DIV>

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