IE table printing problem

IE 5.5's refusal to print nested lists

[Gil_Sery]

On this one web page of mine, I used nested lists within a table, without using <li> tags, since I didn't want the black bullets. My problem is that IE 5.5 refuses to print past the first page that has the nested lists. I've run the page through 2 HTML validators, and (except for the deliberately missing <li> tags, I didn't have any tag problems)
<P>
Is there even a connection between these two? Or am I just going mad?
<P>
This only happens in IE 5.5 and none of the support doucments on Microsoft's website seem to apply to my problem.

*Any* suggestions that could help are much appreciated and very welcome.

Thanks.

Gil

Note: The site is in Gil's profile: go to the what-is-seo.html page.

(edited by: tedster at 1:20 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2002)

[tedster]

Have you tried using LI tags with the list-style-image property? This validates and lets you replace the standard bullets with your own image.

W3Schools Reference [w3schools.com]

(edited by: tedster at 12:38 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2002)

[Gil_Sery]

Thanks fro replying, tedster. As I understand it, using an image instead of a bullet means, that the line wraps under the image, not under the first line of text, as I currently have it.

Am I correct in saying this?

[tedster]

That hasn't been my experience -- the image replaces the bullet farthest to the left, and the text wraps to the indented margin not the image position.

It's worth a try. Valid code is always the first step towrds getting things to work.

[Gil_Sery]

Thanks, tedster.

But what about alt text and and width and height attributes? How do I use those if the image url is in the external CSS file?

[tedster]

Right, you don't use those attributes. Width and height are no loss, but I can see where you might want alt text.

There are other ways to render the layout you want here without resorting to invalid code. The easiest would be to nest a table of two cells in the TD where your list bullets and copy are. This only goes two deep in nesting, so it shouldn't be a big deal with the spiders. The first cell would hold your images and the second would hold your copy.

It would take some experimentation, but I think you might get the same effect with divs instead of nesting tables.

By the way, your question was about printing. I wouldn't want to lose that baby in the bathwater. You might want to try a version of the page with regular bullets and see first if that prints. I'm assuming the invalid code is the problem, but it mught well be something else.

[Gil_Sery]

Tedster, I tried using the list-style-type in CSS, but the text did not indent far enough. I tried using text-indent, but that only indents the first line.

Can I do a blockquote on this, and if so, how do I incorporate it?

Thanks.

[Gil_Sery]

Yes, my question was about printing, but the reason I created the seo-process.html page was to make the what-is-seo.html page shorter. The seo-process.html info was originally on the what-is-seo.html page.

The seo-process.html page prints fine. It's the what-is-seo.html page that I have trouble printing, even without the <ul> and <li> tags.

Could you please also edit my first message to reflect the correct page.

Thanks.

(edited by: Gil_Sery at 1:20 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2002)

[tedster]

Before you add blockquote, how about making your bullet replacement wider by adding extra transparency on the right side. That might give you precise control.

[Gil_Sery]

That won't help, because of the <br> after the bullet heading line.

There's two sections to each bullet:
* the picture next to the bullet heading, and

*the bullet text, ideally, under the bullet heading.

The bullet text doesn't have the image; only the bullet heading does, so I can have as much space on the right as I want without it affecting the text.

That's why I thought of using blockquote on the bullet text.