Need Urgent Help!! Loosing Books when importing Framemaker TOC in RoboHelp

Hello Everyone!

I am stuck in a very serious and unusual situation! Here is what exactly I am doing and facing subsequently :

1. I create a new book in Adobe Framemaker (.book), then add some files in it (.fm files).
2. I add Table of Contents and update the book.
3. The .fm file for table of contents is generated which looks something like (Image01)
4. I update the book and then switch to RoboHelp
5. In Robohelp, i LINK .book file and then right click on the .book Update->Generate
6. I see some things generated with symbols (Image02)

1. I right click on the book file ->Properties ->Content Settings click on Convert Framemaker table of Contents, then open the TOC file (generated by framemaker). In the "Create New Associated TOC" I type in the name for the table of contents
2. I then again right click on the .book file Update -> Update
3. The TOC's are finally generated (Image03)

NOW COMES THE MOST BUGGING PART

10. I create some books in the listed TOC's (Image04)

11. I then once again right click on the book and hit "update" (Image05)

12. Once the book is updated, MY ALL THE BOOS (the red books) created in table of contents are GONE. And the table of contents become    

     completely FLAT  as in image03

After doing some more research, I came to know that we can have the desired book structure imported by playing around with tags and indenting. Please refer to the following extract :

How is TOC converted

In case Import/Add FrameMaker file – FrameMaker’s TOC only references the FrameMaker documents, headings are retrieved from each FrameMaker document, not the FrameMaker’s TOC file (only the styles on which the TOC is to created are read from here)

The styles in your FrameMaker TOC determine which headings become books, sub-books, or pages. The most important element in determining the level is the left-most indent, then font size and font weight (inline styles do not convert). Headings that have indented items under them will be books.

For example:
If you created a TOC for a FrameMaker document or book, an associated TOC file is also created. Make sure the TOC file is located in the folder with the other documents you are importing. RoboHelp will ask you if you want to include it in the import (you can only import one TOC per session). If you select a TOC file to import and then you choose “No” when RoboHelp prompts you to include it, it is converted to a page in the TOC.

The contents of FrameMaker TOC files are not used (only the styles are used)

Strategies for converting TOCs

• Set up and apply styles in FrameMaker documents before you import them.
• Create your TOC in FrameMaker.
• RoboHelp’s TOC is based on the styles in the FrameMaker TOC file.
• Headings you want as main books should have heading levels beneath them that are indented, or have smaller fonts or no bold.
• Headings you want as sub-books should appear under main headings and have heading levels beneath them that are indented, or have smaller fonts or no bold.
• Headings you want as pages should not have more heading levels beneath them, and should be indented, or have smaller fonts or no bold.

To elaborate the above points, In RoboHelp the parent child relation of the generated TOC are defined based on

• Firstly, the indentation with respect to each other (like say H1 has 1″ and H2 has 1.5″ then H1 will be parent of H2), all other parameters being same.
• Then the font weight (a style having bold will be parent of the style having regular font weight), all other parameters being same
• Then the font size is taken into account the style with the bigger font size would be parent of the style having smaller font size all other parameters being same.

So the combination of above can be used to define the hierarchy of the TOC file that is to be created in RoboHelp and don’t apply any other external formatting in the TOC file in FrameMaker and if you have to then create two TOC’s one for RoboHelp (online outputs) with no formatting and other one for the Print output with all the formatting

Ashish Gupta
RoboHelp Engineering Team

I am still not able to figure out something concrete. And i am completely stuck at this point. Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Adobe Guy!