I thought my questions were at an end. LOL I am having no problem generating Responsive HTML for my large project, but the PDF output has not yet been successful. I've poured over my project to try to figure out why it keeps failing, but I'm at a loss. Here is what I've checked so far. Java SE Runtime 8u261 is installed to its default installation path 64-bit machine, 64-bit version.Adobe Robohelp is installed to its default installation pathMy RoboHelp project is built on my local D drive, but it is synched with a folder on Dropbox for backup and distribution to the company I am doing the docs forThere are no broken links (close to 800 topics total in two manuals)One mystery file was listed in the RoboHelp log. I kept getting one message in the log that it failed to copy D:/Dropbox/ ....... (project path) ...../contents/assets/masterpages/_rhdefault.css. So I manually created a copy of that file and pasted it into that location. The error went away. The big puzzle is what is calling for that file. I did a style sheets report and there is nothing using it. I set up my publishing profile. The build log shows it found Java. It then goes through updating all of the HTML topics. Then it goes through merging all the topics. All these done without any errors listed.And then ... at the end of the log ... Error. Failed to generate Reference Manual.I also tried making a copy of the project on another hard drive without the Dropbox connection to test if it might be a Dropbox lag or something. That copy also failed. I did try to build a PDF of the About RoboHelp project sample, and that generated fine. I guess I will have to take a deeper look at that to see if I might be missing something, but so far things seem pretty straightforward. I've checked and double-checked my project settings, css references, links, used and unused files. Given what I explain above, is there anything else I should look for?

Inspiring

Answered

Another PDF Fail - RH 2020

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
October 9, 2020
20 replies
1139 views

I thought my questions were at an end. LOL

I am having no problem generating Responsive HTML for my large project, but the PDF output has not yet been successful. I've poured over my project to try to figure out why it keeps failing, but I'm at a loss. Here is what I've checked so far.

Java SE Runtime 8u261 is installed to its default installation path 64-bit machine, 64-bit version.
Adobe Robohelp is installed to its default installation path
My RoboHelp project is built on my local D drive, but it is synched with a folder on Dropbox for backup and distribution to the company I am doing the docs for
There are no broken links (close to 800 topics total in two manuals)
One mystery file was listed in the RoboHelp log. I kept getting one message in the log that it failed to copy D:/Dropbox/ ....... (project path) ...../contents/assets/masterpages/_rhdefault.css. So I manually created a copy of that file and pasted it into that location. The error went away. The big puzzle is what is calling for that file. I did a style sheets report and there is nothing using it.
I set up my publishing profile. The build log shows it found Java. It then goes through updating all of the HTML topics. Then it goes through merging all the topics. All these done without any errors listed.
And then ... at the end of the log ... Error. Failed to generate Reference Manual.
I also tried making a copy of the project on another hard drive without the Dropbox connection to test if it might be a Dropbox lag or something. That copy also failed.

I did try to build a PDF of the About RoboHelp project sample, and that generated fine. I guess I will have to take a deeper look at that to see if I might be missing something, but so far things seem pretty straightforward.

I've checked and double-checked my project settings, css references, links, used and unused files. Given what I explain above, is there anything else I should look for?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Peter Grainge

The problem was caused by an output topic having been imported into the source files. In Classic they were obvious as there would be red squares indicating the scripts within such topics.

Visually they are not obvious in the new UI. I have filed a ticket suggesting that the PDF generation process should check for such files and throw a warning if any are found.

If anyone thinks this is behind their PDF generation failure, the Find and Replace and search for CDATA. That will identify output files in your source.

Show previous replies

D

Deecey52Author

Inspiring

I may have stumbled onto something but I can't find how to fix it.

There are two index files in my documentation index folder. One named Default.ids, and the other named (myproject).idx.

I began observing that the PDF projects seemed to stop responding at the Index compilation. I opened each file in a text editor to see what was going on. Initially, they were both just about blank.

There were over 1000 index entries in the RoboHelp project index, but barely any in either of these idx files. Right now, only one of the two manuals is indexed (the Python manual). I don't want to build the index entries for the Reference manual until I sort this out.

Anyway, I used a text editor to add "Reference" conditional tags to the index that was there. And here is when I found something interesting.

When I add conditional tags to the Index tab in Robohelp, the changes are written in the default.idx file.

But the conditional tags themselves appear to be inherited from the (projectname).idx file.

In other words, there is some sort of mismatch going on, and this might be why the PDFs are failing.

I have used search and replace to find whatever is referencing this (projectname).idx file, but nothing comes up. I am not sure how it was created. I may have gotten over ambitious with a search and replace at one point and it might have happened that way.

Is it possible that some sort of javascript was changed somehow and the default.css got replaced with the (projectname).css? I am hoping this might resolve the issue.

There may be light at the end of the tunnel. Previous to this I hadn't created the index.html files for the PDF manuals, but they are there now. And that does indeed seem to be where things are being held up.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I think in your other thread we have already established that you only need one project to achieve what you want.

You can use your online TOC for PDF purposes. To add front and back matter you would need to right click the TOC and change its properties to Book while you do that. This is explained in the About RoboHelp sample project.

Overall you need tags to identify different type of topics and use them with expressions to include/exclude them from a particular output.

You can use one TOC and keep changing its properties from Online to Book or vice versa but you might find it easier to create a duplicate of the Online, set its properties to Book and then edit that as required to get the front and back matter you want.

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

D

Deecey52Author

Inspiring

Hi Peter, thanks.

I've tried that a couple of times and the problem persists afterward. But I had a thought. I am using the "online" project as a source for the PDF manual. Will I need to make a separate project for each of the two manuals to use for the "book" TOCs, or can the single online source be used for both PDF and online?

The other thought I had is if I create a subset TOC maybe I can figure out if there is a particular section that is giving me the grief. But because there are so many cross references between chapters I am afraid that any builds won't be successful anyway.

The online version builds perfectly.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Long shot but close your project and go to File Explorer. Delete the files in the .rh folder. Open your project again.

Does the problem still occur?

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

D

Deecey52Author

Inspiring

Oh I do love that feature 8-)

0 occurrences in 0 files. And if I look at the Style Sheet report, there are no pages shown for using that particular style sheet.

I have to have some sort of mystery setting set somewhere that is preventing me from generating this PDF file, and I'm betting it has something to do with that little mystery css file. Wherever it is it has been really hard to find.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Use the Find and Replace to search for _rhdefault.css. In Settings, select Find in Source View.

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

D

Deecey52Author

Inspiring

It was initially imported from a Word file, but then broken apart into individual HTML topics. The only external references in the project are external URLs.

There are a lot of topics, but other than that it's pretty straightforward HTML and CSS.

A

Amebr

Community Expert

Are you doing anything like importing Word files through the Link functionality? If so, perhaps the import settings are referencing it?

D

Deecey52Author

Inspiring

That was actually a good suggestion, but no reference in that stylesheet to that mystery _rhdefault.css. It's a real puzzle where it's coming from. LOL

A

Amebr

Community Expert

given that the "failed to copy" message references the masterpages folder, have you checked the stylesheet attached to the master page used for the pdf output preset?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded