how long should compiling a project take?

I'd like to re-visit this problem, as we had put it on the back burner for a while, but as I have some time, I'd like to update the issue with more details:

PC: Windows 8.1 Pro, Intel Core processor, CPU 3.30 GHz, RAM 16 GB, 64-bit OS

Robohelp 2017 (on my machine, but is generating to a network drive)

Project 1:

size of project: 24.4MB

size of project on disk: 25.5MB

684 files

33 folders.

Compile/generate time: 2 minutes 15 seconds

Project 2:

size of project: 16.9MB

size of project on disk: 17.7MB

580 files

25 folders.

Compile/generate time: 3 minutes 25 seconds

I should add that this data is as of this morning; I was working on this yesterday afternoon, and both projects took 8-10 minutes to compile (generate?). In fact, the blue circle sat there spinning for about 40 seconds before the compile even started. At one point, I did a ctrl-alt-delete to see what was happening, and saw Robohelp Not Responding.

and yes, I did try deleting the .cpd file ... no difference.

I did a quick test on one of our bigger projects.

On disk it has 120 MB and 1562 files. The actual number of generated topics is 332 (as reported in the log). To generate WebHelp or Responsive HTML5 to my local PC, it took 45 seconds - so yes, assuming you are generating to a local drive, on a decent PC, it could be faster.

It does seem a long time but there is no information about the output you are generating, the PC you are using, the version of RoboHelp and whether you are generating locally or to a network drive

Have you tried deleting the CPD file?

Very difficult to answer questions like this. Have you tried generating in a different environment to get a comparison?

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge