ePublisher projects use Stationery designed in ePublisher Designer by a Stationery designer to define the appearance and behavior of generated output. Stationery is a complete set of processing rules and styles that define all aspects of the output. Writers use the Stationery created by the Stationery designer when they create projects and generate output. Once the Stationery designer changes or updates the Stationery, ePublisher prompts writers when they open projects associated with that Stationery to synchronize their projects with the updated Stationery.

Stationery design projects are not based on Stationery. These projects are created in ePublisher Designer and are used to create and maintain Stationery. To modify or update Stationery, you need to update the Stationery design project and then save it as Stationery.

Stationery stores all the style and behavior settings. Stationery also captures the transformation process and isolates it from changes in future ePublisher releases. Since you can always use ePublisher Designer to create new Stationery, you can easily maintain the existing Stationery and move forward with a new ePublisher release. You can also limit the number of formats included in a Stationery to reduce complexity and potential confusion in your working environment. Each output format, such as HTML Help, WebWorks Help, and Dynamic HTML, requires certain files to generate output. Without these files, the formats do not have the components required to generate the correct output.

To create a new project, ePublisher Express users must have Stationery. For more information about Stationery and how it works, see Stationery, Projects, and Overrides.