Applying search filters (with assigned condition tags) to PDF files in projects

[ayman34476148lb8z]

Hi everyone
Using RoboHelp 2022.
My attempts at using dynamic search filters had been a great success. They're working great on the TOC and onto the search results as well; whether for the parent project or its children.

Only issue remaining to tackle : in several projects, there are numerous files sourced from other departments in PDF format and must remain as such. They are packaged in ROboHelp and ouput along htm files and display correctly when clicked.
However, I was unable to fined a way to tag them like htm files for "product/docType/version" properties of their contents. So currently, all PDF files pop up in search results regardless of what  "product/docType/version" filters are applied. I don't want to exclude the PDFs from search results all together either. I just want them to behave like htm files, and for each of them to show up in results only when it matches the filter(s) applied.
Any hints as to how to proceed from here are greatly appreciated
Ayman

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I suspect what you'd need is a topic "container" for each PDF - the topic would have your metadata required for filtering and the topic content would be a link to the PDF. Then you could exclude PDFs from the search, but still "find" them through the topic.

[ayman34476148lb8z]

Hi Jeff
Thank you for your replay. I thought at one point of encapsulating the PDFs within dummy topics (perhaps that's what you mean by containers unless I'm missing a feature). Then with the number of PDFs to handle, the thought sort of cooled down quickly and I decieded to ask here for hope of an easy way to tag the PDFs themselves directly.
How do you go about the contianer solution? Is it something you have tried by any chance?
Thanks again!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

"encapsulating the PDFs within dummy topics" - That was exactly what I was thinking - no, I haven't needed to go that route because I don't do much filtering in my projects. I suspect that even if you edited the PDFs to include the metadata you're using for the topics, RH still wouldn't know what to do with them (filtering-wise).

[Peter Grainge]

How do users access those PDFs? From links in a topic or are they directly in the TOC?

Are you applying filter tags to the topics or the TOC?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[ayman34476148lb8z]

Hi Peter
Thanks for taking the time for this during the holidays ! 
Users access PDFs both via the TOC directly or via links from within htm topics depending on the project in question and the contents of the PDF.
I've been applying the tags of search filters to the topics. TOCs are not filtered for now.

Thanks again !

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

I think you will need to submit a feature request for this one.. Whilst you can tag links in a topic, that can give rise to conflicts with tagged topics and tagged content.

Please follow this link to report bugs or request new features. https://tracker.adobe.com. Post the link to your bug report / feature request in this thread and others can vote for it. The more people who do so, the higher it gets prioritised.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[ayman34476148lb8z]

And the contianer solution is probably out as well now that I had time to reflect on it. If I link to the PDFs from otherwise empty contianer topics and set the PDFs as non-serachable, then filtering would work but not searching.
Really, the ideal thing is to be also able to tag elements other than htm,  PDFs at least. Funny thing: RoboHelp and PDF are classics of Adobe  🙂
I'll request that feature.
Thanks Peter and happy transition into 2024

Ayman

[ayman34476148lb8z · Accepted solution]

Link to the request made on the Adobe Tracker site:

https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/RH-12247

Whoever else is interested in seeing this feature added, please vote this up to garner more attention (and hopefully priority).
Thanks to Jeff and Peter for their help/advice !