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veghead
Participant
August 18, 2008
Question

How to speed up RoboHelp

  • August 18, 2008
  • 10 replies
  • 1232 views
I have inherited a RoboHelp project that is a couple of years old. It is a pretty simple (or at least it should be) help system, but for some reason everything is very slow. Just opening up the menu option for generating help (to view the generation settings) takes a couple of minutes (although sometimes it gets hung up and takes even longer). It has become increasingly worse over the past couple of years. I think there are a lot of files that are not needed. Is there a clean-up utility or some sort of way to know and delete the files that are not needed?

Also, I came across a reference to JET COMPACT as a tool to use to help performance. I am not sure how I am supposed to use this tool. References have been made to the .CPD file which appears to be 2.8M.

The generated help product has already been delivered to our customer, and we are just maintaining it now. So, naturally, I am very hesitant about making changes to the source code. The problem is really interferring with productivity, however. Since I need to be very cautious about the changes I make, I want to know what well-tested, error-free methods there are for making the RoboHelp project perform at a reasonable speed.
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    10 replies

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2008
    Install the 7.0.1 patch first, then the 7.0.2 patch.

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    A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2008
    Hurray! Everything works much faster now! Thanks a lot!
    RoboColum_n_
    RoboColum_n_
    Legend
    September 25, 2008
    Yes.
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2008
    7.0.2 is immediately above it.

    You have to have admin rights attached to your login to apply the update or you can get IT to apply it for you.

    Please edit that link to help anyone else who needs it. Remove the full stop.

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    A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2008
    Do you mean I should install 7.0.2 patch for a 7.00.1 version?
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2008
    Welcome to the forum.

    Have you installed both patches? The second one included performance enhancements.

    Also it is important your project is local and not on a network, other than under source control.

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    A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2008
    Which "both" do you mean? I have version 7.00.145 and I found a patch for 7.0.1 here http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html . Unfortunately, it could not be loaded...
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 5, 2008
    Not being able to generate an output is not down to having deleted these files, that is some other problem.

    The article tells you what you will lose and how to recover. As you recover things, the new files are built.

    The HHP is a file that contains information RH uses. It is of no use to your end users. They need the CHM, otherwise why would you generate it, or one of the other outputs.

    The article tells you why it works, because you are creating a new Access database which removes whatever is causing the problem.

    If your management are concerned, tell them you have created a backup of the whole project before you deleted anything. If they are still concerned, ask them what option there is. :-)

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    A
    Anonymous
    September 25, 2008
    Hi all,
    I'm facing a similar speed problem with RoboHelp 7. I'm creating a WebHelp, and RoboHelp is really slow to open topics and perform other actions. Each time I double-click a topic, it takes about 10 seconds to open, sometimes even longer. I read the posts above and tried what's said in Opening Projects (deleted the .cpd file and opened the project by using the existing .xpj), but this didn't work. Are there any other solutions to this Robo speed problem?
    V
    vegheadAuthor
    Participant
    September 5, 2008
    Thank you all for your responses so far.

    I read Peter Grainge’s article about “Opening RoboHelp Projects” and tried what he suggested. It seemed to work, but I don’t understand why. Before I can make changes on the “real” version, I’ll need to explain to my project lead why it worked and what possible hazards there are.

    I tried to follow the instructions exactly but I couldn’t compile a new CHM file (by generating with the HTML format as the output) because the computer “ran out of memory.” I could rename both the CPD and XPJ files. The instructions warned that I might lose some files, which could be recovered, using this method. My questions are these:
    1) What files might I lose that I need to recover?
    2) Why do I need to update the CHM (or rather the HHP since that appears to be the end-goal)?
    3) Why does this method work?

    G
    GEWB
    Inspiring
    September 4, 2008
    Hello Veghead -

    Also search this site for "Access" as in Microsoft Access and read the threads - several ideas there for you to try. As Peter posted, do a full backup of your source files first.

    Regards,
    GEWB
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2008
    Correct. The XPJ and CPD replaced the MPJ.

    Before you do any deleting, make a full backup by zipping up the whole project.

    There is a report for unused files but don't take it as gospel. Delete with caution and if in doubt, don't.

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    vegheadAuthor
    Participant
    September 3, 2008
    I'm referring to getting rid of unused source files. There seem to bee soooo many files for only 600 tiny topics (OK, maybe that is a lot of topics). Perhaps it isn't the number of files that is slowing the source code down. You mentioned "performance problem". What is the best method to fix this?
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2008
    Sorry, meant to go on to say getting the performance sorted first.

    What sort of files are you talking about when you refer to unwanted files? Source or output?

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    vegheadAuthor
    Participant
    August 18, 2008
    I think the source files have picked up many extra files. For example, I have a .xpj and a .mpj file and I don't think I need both. (correct?) I don't know if this slows the performance, but there may be more files out there.
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2008
    See the topic on Opening Projects on my site.

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