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K
Krischu
Inspiring
April 5, 2018
Question

utf-8 with BOM not recognized?

  • April 5, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 586 views

While going step for step through all my subprojects I'm seeking for errors in Helpcompiler output and found this one:

HHC3004: Warning: 
Some_Topic.htm : 
The HTML tag "?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?" is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

Looking at the file (with notepad++) I find it being an UTF-8 file with BOM. Seems like

Microsoft HTML Help Compiler 4.74.8702

doesn't like it.

So what's with UTF-8 coded files in general in RH (9 in this case).

I understand that HHC et al. are very old Microsoft programs and the may not know about UTF-8 at all, do they?

What is the general strategy to cope with Umlauts etc. in RH-projects?

--

Christoph

EDIT: another observation: I have lots of pages (.htm) that have an UTF-8 BOM and they work flawlessly in the HHC step.

Only this said one on which the Warning occurs, differs in such a way from the others that this topic has a red X over the icon in the TOC treeview.

Strange. I'm trying to remove that topic and recreate it.

A side question: how do I get a topic that is added to the project in the left project broswer view into the TOC at its right place. I can add new topics to the TOC but how do I add an existing one?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 5, 2018

A red X usually means a missing topic. Otherwise I would have thought it could be some small difference in the code. Main thing is whether the topic is in the output and can be viewed in the CHM. UTF8 is something that was added several versions back. I thought it got added on upgrading.

Not sure about umlauts. I think it depends on the language of the RoboHelp installation and the language of the operating system. Perhaps someone else can comment on this aspect.

To add topics to the TOC, just drag them from Project Manager or the Topic List to where you want them.

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

@petergrainge

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K
KrischuAuthor
Inspiring
April 5, 2018
https://forums.adobe.com/people/Peter+Grainge  schrieb
To add topics to the TOC, just drag them from Project Manager or the Topic List to where you want them.

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

@petergrainge

I think UTF-8 covers Umlauts and other special characters. Was just unsure about UTF-8 at all but it's been there for a long time anyway, I think.

It's been just the special bevaviour about that (missing) file. Actually it was there in the project tree and in the FS.

I was fooled by the behaviour of the cursor shape when dragging. It started with a sign. So I thought it was immovable. When dragging further the shape changes. It's irritating.

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 5, 2018

It shows that sign until you have dragged it somewhere it can be moved to. Seems quite logical.

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

@petergrainge

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
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