Cannot find Microsoft Word installed on your system

[Goldiew]

Hi,

Wonder if anyone can help...

I just tried to generate my printed documentation in RoboHelp and everytime I try I get the error message 'Cannot find Microsoft Word installed on your system'.

It is installed, and when I go to Tools > Options > Tool Locations you can see it is pointing to the right location (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE).

This is the first project I have done with RoboHelp 7.0 on Vista- does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

[Wkugelman]

I think I've the solution.
RH7 looks for the Winword.exe file in the Program Files folder, which has security restrictions to limit access.

1) Make an alias of the Winword.exe file and place it in another area (like your desktop or "My documents" folder)
2) In RH7-Tools-options-tool locations-HTML editors, point the Word entry to the new alias. Save and close everything.

RH should now find Word. Post your results for others to see!
WK

[nitabeck]

Sounds great... in theory... and you really had me going there!

But, alas, I can't get this solution to work on Vista. When I try in RoboHelp to browse to where I put the shortcut to Word (and I've tried putting it in different locations), Vista's Open window doesn't show any shortcuts. If I manually type in the path to the shortcut, RoboHelp tells me the path is invalid.

Nita

[Wkugelman]

quote:

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Originally posted by: nitabeck
Sounds great... in theory... and you really had me going there!

But, alas, I can't get this solution to work on Vista. When I try in RoboHelp to browse to where I put the shortcut to Word (and I've tried putting it in different locations), Vista's Open window doesn't show any shortcuts. If I manually type in the path to the shortcut, RoboHelp tells me the path is invalid.

Nita

---

My fix above has worked on a number of XP boxes. As for Vista... Time to jump over to the MS-Vista forums for a solution to VIsta's Open dialog box. You have my sympathies for having to use Vista...

[Bosch_pb]

First, thanks to Wkugelman for this new initiative. I think we are a big step nearer, but not quite there yet.

Nitabeck wrote

quote:

---

If I manually type in the path to the shortcut, RoboHelp tells me the path is invalid.

---

This happens to me on XP too, so there must be some other problem. I do have adminsistrator rights on this PC. Here's what I do

1) Find WINWORD.EXE and create a shortcut to it on my desktop. I rename it to WINWORD.EXE
2) In RH. Menu:Tools > Options > Tab:Tool Locations > Pane: HTML Editors
3) Select the line Word 2003 and click the Edit... button to change the path
4) I get a popup called HTML Editor with Word 2003 grayed out above, and a path selector text box below.
5) Now it doesn't matter whether I use the path browser icon and navigate to my new shortcut, or whether I enter the path manually. When I click OK I get a popup saying the path is invalid or I return to the HTML Editor popup but the path to Word has not changed (it remains C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\WINWORD.EXE ).

Notes: It doesn't matter whether the path is on C:\ where Program Files (with Office11 And Adobe Robohelp 7 reside), or on D:\ where my "My Documents" directory is with subdirectory My Robohelp projects.

I have also played around with the two radio buttons at the bottom of the Tool Locations tab:
* Auto-select editor and
* Use default editor
But to no avail. Can someone explain what these options change?

If protections on the OFFICE11 directory or Winword executable are the problem, wouldn't it be simpler to loosen these so that RH can use it?

[Bosch_pb]

Next experiment.

Instead of making a shortcut to WINWORD.EXE I actually copied the whole thing, all 12MB, to
D:\My Documents\My RoboHelp projects\

This time RH accepts and displays the new path!

But I still get the popup Cannot find Microsoft Word installed on your system when I click "Printed documentation"

[Peter Grainge]

The problem you guys have is about RH not being able to start Word to generate printed documentation which is not the same as using it as the editor.

I have not previously seen any reference to restrictions on Program Files restrictions and cannot figure out how creating a shortcut to the same exe would beat the restrictions.

[Wkugelman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by: Peter Grainge
The problem you guys have is about RH not being able to start Word to generate printed documentation which is not the same as using it as the editor.

I have not previously seen any reference to restrictions on Program Files restrictions and cannot figure out how creating a shortcut to the same exe would beat the restrictions.

---

Peter is right, there is no logical reason why my fix should work, yet it did. furthermore, after removing the html editor link to Winword, as well as the .DOC file association to ms-Word, I can still generate a Word doc. Feels like a registry issue to me. Lets see what the Adobe techs say...

[Bosch_pb]

Following my own hunch
"If protections on the OFFICE11 directory or Winword executable are the problem, wouldn't it be simpler to loosen these so that RH can use it?"

...I changed the permissions on WINWORD.EXE and the OFFICE11 directory to allow "Everyone" to read and execute. Note: This is probably a big Windows security risk, but I thought it worth the try.

Guess what? I still get the error!

[Peter Grainge]

Just for a laugh, try opening RH for Word. I wonder if that will create a missing registry entry?

[Bosch_pb]

Worth a try but didn't help. Thanks anyway.

I opened RH for Word (for the first time). Saved a dummy project in it. Restarted RH with an old CHM project and tried the "Printed Documentation" button.

Same old "Cannot find Microsoft Word" error, both before and after a complete reboot.



The weird thing, as I mentioned before, is that the error appeared for me one day, though I had managed to generate Word docs with the previous version (RH6). I'm unsure whether I ever managed with RH7.

A couple of colleagues have had the opposite experience: didn't work und er RH6, now it works under RH7.

[Peter Grainge]

Well while we are in the market for clutching at straws, go to Help | About in Word.

Click Disabled Items. Anything there?

[Bosch_pb]

Nope - nothting in disabled items.


BTW as we are fully paid-up customers I've just created Adobe Support Case #0180428973 for this problem, and for the problem description simply pointed the tech support guys to this forum topic. Should be more than enough to be going on with.

I will of course post any results here.

Thanks for your continued assistance, Mr Grainge.

[Guest]

Hi all,

As a matter of interest, have you checked if there were any Office updates at about the time the problem materialised. If more than one user was affected at the same time within an organisation, I would be suspicious of the updates. Also look for Windows updates.

Regards,

Brian

[Peter Grainge]

To anyone still having this problem, please go to Run and enter winword.exe.

Then post here whether or not Word opens.

[nitabeck]

Morning, Peter.

On Vista, Word DOES start up if I enter winword.exe at Run.

Nita

[Bosch_pb]

Thanks Peter, Sorry for the late response - been a way for a couple of days.

On my WXP/Office 11 System winword DOES come up when I click Start > Run > winword.exe

What does that tell you?

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks. Need replies from some of the others too.

Come on Wkugelman and Bosch-pb.

[Guest]

Peter,

I found this old thread which may or may not be relevant. Howerever, I am having problems accessing the link at the end of the thread - Microsoft search problem. If anyone can access this link it may give us some pointers

previous thread

Brian

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks, to our resident search engine who succeeds where Google fails.

Brian. I tried various things to locate the target of that link but no joy. The thread did however remind me of a likely cause, a corrupt windows profile.

Here's what one of you guys needs to try. Deactivate and uninstall RH. Get IT to create a new profile for you without deleting your old one, we don't know for sure that is the problem. Reinstall RH to the new profile and try again.

The bad news is if that fixes the problem, you will have lost all your custom settings in all programs.

[Peter Grainge]

That answer doesn't tell anything. The hope was that it would not run and indicate where the problem was.

Still trying to isolate the problem.

[Peter Grainge]

One thing missing in most cases here is whether you are using RH for Word or RH HTML to generate the printed output. What is being used guys?

[nitabeck]

I am using Adobe RoboHelp 7 HTML on Vista on which Word 2003 is installed.

Just for "fun," I started up Adobe RoboHelp 7 for Word (which I otherwise never use... wish I didn't have to pay for it...), and opened the sample project and then output to the Print Documentation layout. It found Word just fine.

[Bosch_pb]

Hi Peter, and thanks again for the bulldog spirit.

In my case the problem is only with RH-HTML. I would not normally use RH-Word at all.

I did the following this morning.

1) Started RH-Word and generated "printed documtentation" (Word) from a home-made dummy project **successfully**.
2) Closed down RH-Word and started RH-HTML with another dummy project.
3) Tried generating "printed documentation" from RH-HTML
4) I get the same error popup as always - sorry.

kind regards
pb


PS. Don't know if I mentioned this, but I have tried reinstalling RH (from the Technical Communication Suite CD), - to no avail. BTW I don't think it has anything to do with the Technical Communication Suite because my colleagues also have it, and they don't have this problem.

PPS. I took note of the "corrupt Windows profile" suggestion, but am reluctant to go that route because:
a) The cure (if it really is a cure, which is very uncertain), is worse than the disease.
b) Everything else works (including 90% of RH!). It seems a bit odd to talk about a corrupt Windows profile when the only thing that's festering is RH.

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks nitabeck. Has it fixed things back in RH HTML?

[nitabeck]

quote:

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Originally posted by: Peter Grainge
Thanks nitabeck. Has it fixed things back in RH HTML?

---

I don't know what you mean by your question. I haven't done anything in RH7 HTML to get this to work. RH7 HTML on Vista on which Word 2003 is installed cannot find Word when I attempt to generate Printed Documentation whose output format is set to "Generate Word DOC." If I could get it to work, I'd be thrilled, but at this point, I must admit that I'm looking elsewhere (read that: at other tools).

My reason for mentioning RH7 for Word in response to your inquiry about which version of RH we posters are using was to say that RH7 for Word on my Vista machine is able find Word when I attempt to generate Printed Documentation to Word. This is in contrast to RH7 HTML on the same machine not being able to find Word.