Skip to main content
D
deadtreefrog
Participating Frequently
August 11, 2015
Question

RoboHelp 9, 10, 11 Styles / Tables Nightmare

  • August 11, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 372 views

Why is it so difficult to apply styles and get consistent results in any version of RoboHelp. I've been using RH forever and I have yet to get consistent results using styles. I usually waste 40% of my time trying 20 different ways of fix style/formatting problems. The WYSIWYG (lol) viewer is useless when it shows something completely different from the preview. I'm seriously going to recommend dumping all our RH licensing and go with ANYTHING else. Anyone have a new product recommendation? If Microsoft would build something similar to RH, with the functionality of Word, I would pay anything!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 11, 2015

    Which do you think will work best?

    Walk into a restaurant and say what they served you last time was awful and could they recommend another restaurant?

    OR

    Explain that last time you eat there you thought the meal was truly awful but you would like to give them the chance to show they can produce something you do like?

    You have given those of us who support the forum nothing to go on to help you with the problem. I have had few problems with styles and when I have, I have usually found what I got wrong. If Rh was as bad as you make it sound, no one could use it but many people do. So can we please start again?

    Give us one or two examples of the problems with enough detail to work on. Could you set up an example in a new dummy project? If you can, I will gladly take a look.

    See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

    @petergrainge

    Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
      D
      deadtreefrogAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      August 11, 2015

      The post was designed to get a reaction. Adobe doesn't seem dedicated to making the program easier to use, just making enough changes to sell another upgrade. I may be completely off base, but why is there no attention given to convenience functionality to help apply styles and make it easier to work with fonts and other formatting. The program looks like Word Perfect from 1999, with about the same features. I know it's not a native Adobe product, but it does have a huge user base and they should step up to the plate and make this product better.

      Ok, I feel a little better...

      I'm simply importing a Word 2013 doc, selecting Heading 1 for pagination, accepting the other defaults, and clicking OK. I change the style sheet on the new topics after import and the problems start. I'm not using any unusual styles, just normal, headings, etc. There may be some in-line styles that aren't accounted for, but it should be a matter of selecting another style and have if apply correctly every time.

      I found that if a Span tag is showing on the topic, the styles behave oddly, but these tags must be coming with the import.

      Any help is truly appreciated.

      Thank you

      Sent from my iPad

      Peter Grainge
      Community Expert
      Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 12, 2015

      You need to understand that this forum is mostly supported by other users of RoboHelp rather than staff. Any comments here are mostly lost as far as Adobe is concerned. You must have had a very special version of Word Perfect to give you the functionality that is in RoboHelp.

      Feel free to knock RoboHelp as much as you want or to try another product and learn about its pluses and minuses. By all means post about specific problems here and I along with others will try to help. If you just want to be negative, then personally I will just move on to the next thread requiring help. RoboHelp is not a perfect product, neither are any of its competitors products. They are the tools available and we have to work with them.

      The problem you are facing with importing is essentially that you are trying to put diesel (a DOC format file) into a petrol/gas (HTML) engine and expecting it to work. What RoboHelp has to do is convert the DOC into HTML and to do that it uses Word's function to save the file in HTML format. Word's function creates a lot of code that Microsoft want in the HTML format to work with their other products. Unfortunately others do not want that code and it causes problems.

      Take a look on my site where you will find detailed instructions on how to import and then apply your own CSS file.

      Importing and Linking Word Documents

      Try that and if you have specific problems post back here and I will see if I can help.

      See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

      @petergrainge

      Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices