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MPizanti
Known Participant
May 24, 2011
Question

HTML Tag <span lang="EN-GB"

  • May 24, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 3679 views

Hi,

I have the HTML tag <span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB"> everywhere in my project.

Can I get rid of this with search and replace and if so what do I replace it with?

(Working with RH9 but projects originate from RHX5)

Thanks

Morven

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    1 reply

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 24, 2011

    I saw that in your project that I looked at for your offline question and wondered what it was about. Normally that would be used in a project where you have multiple languages but I didn't think you would differentiate between US English and UK English. Maybe you are not aware they are also known as Universal English and International English respectively, does that ring any bells with anything you have done.

    Also did you get my email reply to your other problem?

    See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

    @petergrainge

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    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 24, 2011

    Morven

    I just took another look at the sample project you sent and I am puzzled as to how those spans got applied. RoboHelp 9 allows you to set the language at project, topic and paragraph level but you have it at character level. Do you have any ideas as to how it got there?

    As to removing it, I thought maybe right clicking and using Remove Attributes would be the safest way but you cannot see from all the attributes in the dialog which ones relate to language, plus it would be very time consuming.

    If you use multi file Find and Replace there are practical problems but they can be resolved.

    • First you would search for <span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and that can be deleted safely. Problem is RoboHelp's own tool will only search on a single line and some of the code is split across lines.
    • You could use FAR and set that to work across lines and that should be OK for that. Set the search to start with the first part <span lang="EN-GB" and end with the last part xml:lang="EN-GB">. That way it will find the string when split across lines.
    • Then you are left with removing the </span> tags associated with the above. Any find and replace will find ALL closing span tags, not just the ones you want removed. Gotcha.
    • The solution seems to be to remove <span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB"> using FAR as above and then open the project in RoboHelp and go to Tools > Update DHTML Effects. That has the same effect as opening a topic in Design Editor and switching to HTML View and back to Design Editor when RoboHelp rewrites the code and cleans up things such as the unpaired closing span tags.

    I just tried it on you sample and it worked but do back up your full project before you try the above and keep the backup until you have tested afterwards. I think it should be OK but better safe than sorry.

    See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

    @petergrainge

    Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
    M
    MPizantiAuthor
    Known Participant
    May 24, 2011

    HI Peter,

    First of all thanks again for your help with the offline question.

    Regarding the <span lang="EN-GB" xml:lang="EN-GB"> - I just had a look at the RHX5 files and there there are a lot of  <span lang=EN-GB> tags.

    These files originate from even before RHX5 so who knows where these tags came from - been around for ever.

    Will try your suggestions below.

    Thanks

    Morven

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