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Question

Glossary from FrameMaker not appearing in RoboHelp output

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
March 20, 2012
3 replies
1209 views

We are using FrameMaker 10 and RoboHelp 9.

We have user guides in FrameMaker that we want to publish to WebHelp from within FrameMaker. The user guides in FrameMaker all have a glossary in its own chapter at the end of the guide.

In FrameMaker, with the user guide book file open/selected, we select File > Publish.

The Publish Settings window appears.

We select WebHelp, and specify an ISF file that breaks chapters down into individual HTML files by heading level, then click Publish.

RoboHelp opens and publishes the content from the user guide to WebHelp, then RoboHelp closes.

We navigate to the folder that contains the WebHelp files, and launch it.

There is a glossary node at the bottom of the TOC in the WebHelp, but it is always empty.

Can someone please explain how to get RoboHelp to include the glossary content from the Glossary chapter in the user guide when it publishes from FrameMaker to WebHelp? We were hoping that the handoff from FM to RH was seamless, but apparently it is not.

Thank you!

Tim

This topic has been closed for replies.

V

vpmorgan

Participating Frequently

Hi Tim –

I am using a different process for single-sourcing our documentation in the TCS – FrameMaker 10 and Robohelp 9. I am creating the files in FrameMaker as book files, with TOCs, Glossaries, and Indexes. I am also conditionalizing some text for online and some for print. However, my workflow, based on a lot of research and watching tutorials, is to link the FrameMaker files in a RH9 project. Then, I use Robohelp to apply the .isf file settings, a FrameMaker template to use for conversion of things like cross-reference formats, a RH master page for the online help, the customized Webhelp skin I want to use, and to do any other small tweaks as necessary since the conversion process is about 90% seamless but not perfect.

I found that when linking the files (rather than importing, which is a static process), I also get “empty” default TOCs, Glossaries, and Indexes. The solution that I found is:

1. After generating html topics from my linked FramMaker book files, I right-click on the book file in the Project Manager pod and select Properties.

2. On the Contents tab of the “FrameMaker Document Settings” panel, I check all 3 boxes to “convert FrameMaker” TOC, Glossary, and Index files. For the TOC, I navigate to the FrameMaker TOC file of my book.

3. I select the radio buttons to “Create new associated” TOC, Glossary, and Index and RH insists I name them, so I name them Contents, Glossary, and Index.

4. Then, click OK to close this window.

5. Back to the Project Manager pod, I right-click my new TOC, Glossary, and Index files (one at a time) and select the option to set these as the Default ones.

6. I then have the option to right-click and delete the old (empty) ones (for simplicity’s sake). Everything is then right with my help files.

Yes, this is a lot of steps. It’s the only workflow I’ve found that produces the result I want (Webhelp versions of my FrameMaker generated files that contain all entries at the correct levels, and are automated). FWIW, I couldn’t find documentation on this process anywhere. I found it through trial and error and hair-pulling :o)

HTH!

Virginia Morgan | Technical Writer

TAKE Solutions, Inc.

O 512.735.4316 | M 512.426.8323

virginia.morgan@takesolutions.com

T

TimLMunAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for the helpful suggestions, Jeff and Virginia. My team member and I particularly liked the steps Virginia provided.

Nothing is working for us, so permit me to provide the assumed steps we are taking before and after Virginia's.

Step 7 - With the book file selected, we select File > Generate > Primary Layout (WebHelp).

The WebHelp Settings window appears.

Step 8 - We verify that <Default TOC>, <Default Index>, and <Default Glossary> are selected under Content Categories / Content <Default>.

Step 9 - We click Save and Generate.

RoboHelp generates the WebHelp.

Step 10 - We see a dialog window that says: Result: WebHelp has built successfully.

Step 11 - We click, "View Result."

We now have a Glossary tab, but it is empty. It does not contain the glossary of terms in the FrameMaker chapter (in the book file that we published).

So, let me list the steps we take prior to Virginia's Step 1.

a. We open RoboHelp, and see the empty Starter tab.

b. On the Green opening RoboHelp menu, we click Create New > Blank Project.

The New Project Wizard window appears.

c. We enter the project name and specify the location, and click Finish.

d. When the new blank project loads, we select File > Link > FrameMaker document.

The Open window appears.

e. We navigate to the FrameMaker book file, and click Open.

The linked book files appear under Project Files in the Project Manager pod.

In the linked FrameMaker files, we can see the Glossary chapter and the Index chapter.

f. We delete the "First Topic" file that RoboHelp created in step c.

g. We select File > Project Settings.

The Project Settings window appears.

h. On the Import tab, we click Browse, and navigate to the ISF file we want.

i. We click OK.

j. We right-click the book file (in the Project Manager pod), and select Update > Update All.

RoboHelp does whatever it does during an update.

At this point, we started Virginia's step 1. (We were not always successful doing step 6. It crashed RoboHelp more than 50% of the time.)

We did not get a populated set of glossary terms (when we click Glossary in the toolbar at the top, it is empty).

Thank you again for any assistance!

Tim

V

vpmorgan

Participating Frequently

Hi Tim –

I’m glad the steps I provided were helpful. I couldn’t find such documentation anywhere, so I documented everything I did from start to finish that actually produced the desired result (much trial and error, as I previously stated). I don’t know the reason for some of the behavior, as it is not intuitive, but at least I determined what worked for us.

A couple of suggested modifications to your workflow (I have no idea why):

· After your step c, but before your step d, get all the Project Settings correct (File > Project Settings in RH). That is, after creating your new project but before linking your Frame files, so RH knows what to do with them.

· Also, I didn’t see this in your list, but after you link your Frame book file, you still need to perform the step that generates the HTML topics: Right-click on the book file in the Project manager pod. Select Update > Generate. This generates HTML topics based on the pagination/topic levels specified in your .isf file. In our case, we create topics for headings 1, 2, and 3.

· After generating the html files above is when I performed the steps I sent earlier. For some reason, I found that it was best to do all this, then apply my master pages to my topics, I think because every time I update my files, the RH master pages are no longer applied, which is annoying – if there is a way to make them “stick,” I would love to know. (I have about 350 topics all using the same master page, but it takes RH several minutes to perform this action when I select all the topics, right-click, and apply master page to them all at once).

· When everything looks good in RH, that’s when I go to generate my webhelp files, apply my custom skin, and set all the search, favicon, etc settings. At this point, your step 8 should be correct, assuming you have assigned your new TOC, Glossary, and Index files to be the default as I sent in my earlier steps.

I seem to remember having a little difficulty once or twice with the glossary not updating properly despite all this, and taking the shortcut of going into the Glossary pod and clicking the “Import Glossary” button. I then just selected a Frame file with the glossary I wanted and selected the terms to bring in. It’s “cheating,” I know, but the workflow is not perfect…

I hope these tips are helpful.

-Virginia

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Ah yes, I see what you're getting - the Publish screen is really limited in what you can set. Try what I suggested from the RH end to create a "better" .isf file.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

This post probably should be in the FM Integration thread, but no matter ;>)

I've haven't tried doing it this way from FM to RH; as an older TCS client, I do it from RH and pull FM docs into it. You should get a screen that asks if you want to bring in the FM ToC, Glossary, and Index into the project. Maybe you don't when doing it from within FM - I'd have to play with it. How did you set up the .isf settings file to begin with? Usually that has the integration settings established and saved off for reuse in other projects - maybe you should have a look at it from the RH end of things. Create a new project, and set the integration settings to do your pagination, glossary, etc., then export them to an .isf file. Throw away you project and try using that new .isf file from the FM end of things.

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