I have the exact same problem. I am fetching all my CSS content from a DB, and want to get away from storing multiple css-files. So I also want TinyMCE to recognice all settings from the <style type="css"></style> section in the HTML document. This must be a very common problem for many trying to build a CMS with this editor.....

Actually, I found a way to solve my problem!

I am building a cms, and I want to be able to shift a look in a template by simply shifting between different css setups. We call them themes. We want to avoid storing every different theme in a file, and instead store them in a database.

Well, to be able to do that up til now, I simply read in the css-values (the theme) from the DB and then plottet it out in the main HTML-file between <style type="css"></style>.

Up to now, everything was in order....then came the problem to make TinyMCE to read from the <style>- segment of the page instead of reading from a linked css-file....think it will work? You can just forget it, mate! I spent several hours in the forums.......

So, how do we solve it then?

Simply by generating a dynamic php-file that plots out the css-values instead! The neat thing is that you can put a php-file inside of a link-tag, instead of pointing to a static css-file!

Example:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="php_file_goes_here.php" >

That file in turn, can even take paramenters!

Example:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="theme_css_generator.php?theme_id=1" >

The file theme_css_generator.php collects all css values from DB and just echos it out in itself.

So, finally, you just feed TinyMCE with the same file by the content_css-command in the init section

tinyMCE.init({
   content_css : "theme_css_generator.php",
   ...

Work's like a charm!