Creating an external doc link in FM that works in RH

[reneemurphy]

I am using FM 9 and RH 8 (TCS2) and I am trying to create a hyperlink within FM to an external pdf document and then have that hyperlink work from a linked project in RH. Note: I don’t care whether the hypertext command opens the document from within FM, only Robohelp. Two questions: What hypertext command do I use in FM and where do I place the pdf within the RH project?  I’ve tried various combinations of commands and locations, but so far none of the links have worked in my RH project.

My file structure:

FM Project: c:\VSS Checkout\BRG Master Files\BRGMasterProject.book (this book contains chapters linked to multiple subdirectories within the project)

RH Project: c:\RobohelpProjects\Bill Review Guidelines\

I am trying to open a file named ALGuide.pdf using the hypertext marker “message openfile” My assumption (and this could be wrong) is that I need to place the pdf within the Robohelp project and indicate the RH path location within the FM hyperlink.

I have tried the following Hypertext commands assuming that the !SSL! folder within my RH project is where the output files reside (in all of these cases, I placed the pdf file in c:\RobohelpProjects\Bill Review Guidelines\!SSL!\webhelp\) :

message openfile ALGuide.pdf

message openfile webhelp/ALGuide.pdf

message openfile !SSL!/webhelp/ALGuide.pdf

I have tried several other  path/location combinations, but there are so many combinations, I figured it was time to ask. Can anyone assist?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Make sure that you include the pdf in the project's Baggage files.

[Mayank_Agrawal]

The following hypertext command is not meant for HTML and does not work when FM document is imported to RoboHelp.

message openfile

However, one can achieve the same effect by using the following command

message URL

You guessed it right. In order to use it, you need to add the PDF file as a baggage file in the RoboHelp project and then you need to add the file path in the hypertext message command accordingly with a special folder path consideration. This can be explained with the help of the following example

PDF file can be placed anywhere inside the RoboHelp project. For example it is placed inside a folder named "PDFFiles" inside the project root folder as follows

<ProjectFolder>\PDFFiles\ALGuide.pdf

The corresponding command in FrameMaker needs to have path which is relative to the corresponding generated topic in RoboHelp. If the topic is generated from a FM chapter added directly inside the book like this

FRAMEMAKER BOOK STRUCTURE

BRGMasterProject.book

     |

     |----- Chapter.fm

the corresponding folder structure inside RoboHelp will be something like this

ROBOHELP PROJECT STRUCTURE

<RoboHelp Project Folder>

     |

     |------ PDFFiles

     |          |

     |          |----- ALGuide.pdf

     |

     |------ BRGMasterProject

     |          |

     |          |----- Chapter

     |          |          |

     |          |          |----Chapter.htm

The relative path needs to be added accordingly in the hypertext command

For example in this case following should be the command

message URL ..\..\PDFFiles\ALGuide.pdf

I hope this resolves the issue.

Mayank