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metaconcert1965
Known Participant
March 5, 2019
Question

RoboHelp 2017 Styles???????????

  • March 5, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 1068 views

Hi,

At work, I have to use RoboHelp 2017 for our procedures. I used to have them in Word. Now, they are rewritten in RoboHelp so that our users can access them easily.

Font that I use is Arial Narrow 14pt.

I will use bulleted lists.

I created new character and paragraph styles.

I will insert Drop down text boxes.

For those who don't care about the presentation and the reading flow of a procedure, this version of RoboHelp is just fine.

For those who do care, RoboHelp is the WORST SOFTWARE EVER CREATED.

For example, like I said, I created Styles to format the text and paragraphs. All my styles were at the bottom of the style bar. I always had to scroll down to get to them. Because there is a RENAME option when you right click a style, I renamed all my styles - that were already used in all my RoboHelp documents) - by adding 1_ at the beginning of the names. NOW, ALL MY DOCUMENTS HAVE LOST THERE TEXT FORMATS. ALL OF THEM. Even if I reselect the paragraphs or the text and reapply the styles, THE STYLES DO NOT APPLY. I also tried by rewriting the text and reapplying the style and reformatting the text, THE STYLE OR THE FORMAT WON'T APPLY.

The only option left is to rewrite all my procedures. I look so forward to that.

Has you can see, I am not very happy, and there are lots of nasty words that I've omitted in this text.

Before I start rewriting my procedures, is there something that I can do?

Thanks and hope that version 2019 is better.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

S
Community Manager
Stefan GentzCommunity Manager
Community Manager
March 5, 2019

Yes, it’s indeed exactly what Peter said: If you change the class name in the CSS, obviously the HTML elements with the “old” class name cannot find “their” class in the CSS file anymore and will thefore “fall back” on the default class.

That’s how the whole web works. HOWEVER, from a user point of view I totally understand it. metaconcert1965​’s expectation as a user is that all the HTML elements in all topic files that have this specific style defined in their class attribute would get their class attribute value in the code “magically” changed as well. Like you are used to it from tools like Word or FrameMaker.

And I think he has a point there. Hey, the web does not work like this! But why not make it happen? If you can dream it, you can do it!

metaconcert1965​, let me take this idea to our next team meeting. I think it’s a great idea, and it should be technically possible. I’m confident we can implement this in a future release.

Until then: No, you do not need to rewrite all your topics. All that needs to be done is a cross-file search and replace on the code of your topics to change the class attribute values to match the new name. PM me or Peter :-)

M
metaconcert1965Author
Known Participant
March 5, 2019

Wow! You two are fast.

Thanks Peter and Stefan. I'll try what you are recommanding.

Yes Peter, I copied/pasted word content in RoboHelp, but I was expecting that I would loose and have to redo the text format. I hope this as been fixed in version 2019, that we will get in about 6 month.

Pierre L.

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 5, 2019

It is not different in 2019 because what many users want is that the appearance in RoboHelp is the same as in Word so the paste contains the styling it needs to do that. So fix this for one person and the next one complains. After pasting, you can select the text and remove that formatting but I prefer an old utility that works a treat. PureText allows you to paste what is in the clipboard to any software as guess what, pure text, no formatting.

Perhaps Stefan can suggest at his meeting that there is a right click option or suchlike to paste without formatting.

What is much better in 2019 is if you import a Word document. You can map to your own CSS and if anything is found that cannot be mapped, there are options and one puts the new CSS required in a second CSS. Then you can choose to change anything relying on that to something in your orginal CSS or add that CSS to your original. It's more transparent.

See The RoboHelp Tour on my site to learn more about 2019.

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

@petergrainge

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Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 5, 2019

Wow. To say something is the worst ever before finding out whether you have done something wrong seems a bit strong.

In any HTML authoring tool that I have used, renaming a CSS style will result in what you are experiencing. It breaks the link between the CSS and the HTML in the topic. The option is there for those who want to rename a style and are aware the next step is to go through the topics find the old name and replace it with the new name.

What I would do is if the style was Mystyle and has been renamed 1_Mystyle is use Find and Replace at code level to find the old name and replace it with the new name.

What doesn't seem right is what you have done should also work, albeit it's a slower way. I just created MyStyle and set the font to red. Apply that to a paragraph either by choosing it from the dropdown at the top or double clicking in the style pod works. I then changed the name and of course the paragraph lost the style until I tried those options again when it worked as it should.

I am wondering if the topics were created in Word and imported or were they rewritten from scratch? That might have a bearing so post back if that is the case.

The other thing I would suggest trying is to create a new single topic project and try it there. If you get the same result I can look at the project for you.

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

@petergrainge

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