Adobe TCS 2020: Linking RobHelp to FrameMaker?

[keithh13764083]

Hello,

I recently upgraded to Adobe Technical Communication Suite (ATCS) 2020 (including FrameMaker 2020 and RoboHelp 2020).

Previously, I had been using ATCS 4 (with FrameMaker 11 and RoboHelp 10).

Previously, I had a FrameMaker 11 project and a RoboHelp 10 project. The RoboHelp 10 project was linked to the FrameMaker 11 project to allow single sourcing. (Any change made to the FrameMaker files was automatically reflected in the RoboHelp project.)

I have just done the following:
• I have converted the old Frame 11 project to Frame 2020.
• I have converted the old RoboHelp 10 project to RoboHelp 2020.

QUESTION: How do I link the new RoboHelp 2020 project to the new Frame 2020 project (so I can continue to do single sourcing)?

In other words, I want the RoboHelp 2020 project linked to the Frame 2020 project... so that any change made in the Frame 2020 project will be automatically reflected in the RoboHelp 2020 project.

Thank you for your reply! I have studied the information about linking on adobe.com, and I have not been able to make the slightest progress whatsoever on achieving this....

Yours,

Keith

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

At one point in the development of RH2020, there wasn't any linking option being offered - only importing FM content into RH. Now I'm not sure what stage that was left at before RH2020 was released. Maybe @Peter Grainge can recall better (I don't have a copy of RH2020 at hand right now to test with).

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks Jeff, I've been waiting for you to come along and answer this one. 🙂

I have never used Fm but I have described all the features in 2019 and 2020. They include linking to many file formats including book. What formats would you be using in Fm?

[keithh13764083]

Jeff wrote:
<<At one point in the development of RH2020, there wasn't any linking option being offered - only importing FM content into RH.>>
If there is no linking option, then ATCS 2020 is a step backward for me from my old ATCS 4.
Does anyone know if ATCS 2020 can even do what I'm trying to do?

Peter wrote:
<<I have never used Fm but I have described all the features in 2019 and 2020. They include linking to many file formats including book. What formats would you be using in Fm?>>

In RH2020, I can right-click the Assets folder and see Link and Sync options in the menu... But I haven't been able to get any detailed guidance on how to use these. I've tried using them through trial and error, without success. I'm trying to link to a FameMaker book, with all its related files. I want my RH2020 project to be linked to all the content of the FrameMaker book and display all that content. Any changes made in Frame would be reflected automatically in the RH2020 project.

RE Link and Sync, any information that anyone can provide about those would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Yes, in Classic you would link to either the FM document files (.fm/.mif/.dita) or [more commonly] to the book (.book) files - which are like a container for all your .fm files. IIRC (because I'm a FM import guy, not a linker), you would create a new RH project, right-click on the Project Files section in the Project Manager and select Link > Framemaker Document. That would pull all the FM content into the RH project and give you the option going forward to Force Update or Force Update All whenever the FM content changed.
In the New UI scheme, I'm not sure how that is achieved anymore & I don't know how an existing TCS connection fares when both FM content & linked RH project are updated to 2020.

[Peter Grainge]

Ignore Assets. Create a folder in the Contents panel with whatever name you want. This is just to keep what you are about to link to self contained. 

Now right click and select Link. In the file type dropdown select the option that includes book. In theory that's it to the best of my knowledge.

From there you configure your preset and generate.

If that doesn't work, come back but do explain the Fm side in simple terms. I'll see what I can find out. 

[Theresia5E7B]

This does not work for me either. I am using RoboHelp 2020 and FrameMaker 2020, both with the latest updates. In RoboHelp, importing/linking of FrameMaker files does not work because there are no topics created. That is, trying to generate/update the files does not create the topics, so there is no content. If this works for someone can you please indicate what is required to get this work? Are there settings that need to be set before trying to generate/update? Not sure if I should post this in the RoboHelp forum instead, as I am not using the technical communication suite....

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@Theresia5E7B are you upgrading an old RH/FM project or trying a brand new one?

[Peter Grainge]

You are saying that after creating the link to the Fm document and right click on it, the Create/Update does nothing, correct?

[Surbhi_Maheshwari]

Hi Keith,

In contents panel, you can right-click and select Link> Link File. Now select the .fm, .book which you want to link to RH project. Once the file is linked, you can right-click on it and select Create/Update Topics. This will generate html topics in RH. Same is the case with import workflow.

Whenever a linked file will be changed in FM, it will turn out of sync. You can sync it both ways: from source to RH project or vice versa. I am using RH 2020 Update 2 and FM 2020 (build number:16.0.1.817). Please check your RH and FM versions.

Kindly let me know how you are using it. If needed we can connect over a screenshare call to resolve this asap. Kindly email me at sumahesh@adobe.com

Thanks and Regards,
Surbhi Maheshwari

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@keithh13764083 - did you get your system working? 

[keithh13764083]

Hello Jeff,

Thanks for inquiring about this... We never did get RH 2020 to link successfully to FrameMaker 2020. It's not urgent right now that we get it working, and we have a workaround to the problem for now.

At a future time (when we have more time), we'll revisit the issue and see if we can get it to work.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@keithh13764083 check out this thread - https://community.adobe.com/t5/robohelp/robohelp-2020-does-not-link-import-framemaker-2020-files/m-p... - for a workaround

[cynthiacharb]

Has anyone figured this out yet? FM-link-RH is the only reason our team uses Tech Comm Suite (to create WebHelp), and I haven't been able to get this to work since our recent upgrade to Tech Comm Suite 2020. Very frustrating.

[Theresia5E7B]

Ensure that you have latest updates to both products installed, first within the product, and then here are the links separately in case that helps.

https://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html 

https://supportdownloads.adobe.com/product.jsp?product=22&platform=Windows 

Follow the link provided by Jeff and read that.

It does not work for me with large files/books. Adobe is working on a fix.

[cynthiacharb]

Took a while to responsd, but yes I have all the latest updates. Still not working. Adobe has been no help thus far. My book file is large, but what is "large" vs "small". This should not matter. Worked fine in the previous version of FM/RH for decades.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@cynthiacharb - have you tried publishing directly out of FM? With each version of FM, the controls that RH offers are getting more & more exposed inside the Publish pane in FM.
FYI the engine that FM uses to create HTML5 is really RH under the hood.😁

[PaulJena]

I've recently installed TCS 2020 and have the same issue with RoboHelp not linking correctly to FrameMaker (and the workaround didn't work).

• Do we have a date when this issue will be fixed? 
• Can FrameMaker produce ResponsiveHTML suitable for SharePoint?
• Is there still an option to export the RoboHelp ISF?

Best Regards, 

Paul

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@PaulJena - are both versions up to date with the latest patches? Have you tried creating a new RH project and linking your FM content to it? Have you tried contacting @Surbhi_Maheshwari ?
Regarding FM2020 creating SharePoint output - I don't think so (yet)

I don't think .isf conversion to .fsf exists in RH2020 - you'll have to check with RH Support about that one. I do know there's a .isf import to your FM's .sts settings file in FM.

[PaulJena]

Thank you for the quick reply. I was about to say the tools are fully patched as I've clicked Check Updates a number of times in the past week but, having now checked against the Adobe site, Check Updates isn't picking up the 4 available  patches. I'll update and see how it goes.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

RH2020 version 0 had a bug in it that didn't recognize that there were o/s patches. You had to manually load the latest patch from https://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@cynthiacharb - have you tried the direct FM Publishing route?

[cynthiacharb]

I see that the new Publish feature offers more control over the output than it did in 2017 suite. I'll have to investigate further... 

[cynthiacharb]

I have a large book file that contains a TOC, a preface, 9 chapters and a glossary. Numerous reasons why I can't use the Publish feature; publishing to Responsive HTML5 output (closest output to WebHelp). To name a couple: 1) The style mappings doesn't display some of my paragraph styles and so I can't exclude them from the output. 2) No control over the TOC structure

I'm more than just frustrated. No smooth transition for upgrading classic projects and impossible to link from a new RH project. And worse, I shared my files with Adobe last week and haven't heard back. 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@cynthiacharb - AFAIK your paragraph and character formats appear in the Publish settings much like they do in RH & your TOC in FM sets the look for what the TOC appears as in the output (provided you have enough indenting for it to pick up the different headings).