Images are not appearing properly in reverse-engineered RoboHelp File

[priscillaa9287259]

Hi,

Team is building a reverse-engineered RoboHelp file that uses a lot of images. The rebuild RoboHelp project now contains about 5000 items, most of which are images. Every step in a topic is described with a screenshot that is shown to the user using a dropdown hotspot.

Inserting images took up a lot of our time. We had to search and re-insert the images. We would keep the WebHelp open in the browser, right-click against the image and click Save As to see the name of the png/jpeg/gif and then insert the image using Insert Image function and select the image from within the project folder in the pop-up window that appears, so the path would be  eg. Desktop/RoboHelp Project/image44.png.

The problem now is that for many topics the images are not appearing correctly after generating.

Images that belong to some other topic show up. At the same time, the same topic had displayed correct images in an earlier version of WebHelp.

This version was published when the file was 60% completed. Now that the file is 100% completed, we are seeing this issue with a lot of topics. No matter whether you re-import the topics or delete and import the topics again, few topics still display wrong images.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I'd be checking the code view of the RH project topic where it's going wrong to see what's happening. If the RH project topic is correct, but the generated output topic is incorrect, then you've got a bigger problem going on.

[Peter Grainge]

@priscillaa9287259 I have edited your post to break it up a bit to make it easier to follow. Again you have not included your RoboHelp version so I have had to look at your other posts to see it is RoboHelp 2019 Classic. Sorry but I for one cannot remember what version everyone who posts here is on so please include it at the start of all threads.

I'm not entirely clear on the process so let's get that clarified.

1. After reverse engineering, some or all images were missing.
2. You found them in an output and saved them to a folder within the project.
3. At that point the project would not be aware of them so you used Insert Image and added them to a topic by browsing to the folder in the project.
4. At the end of that process all the topics show the images that should be there, be that directly in the topic or in a dropdown.
5. When you generate not all the images show.
   
   Is that much correct?
   
   
6. Have you used the reports to see if that gives any clues?
7. Have you looked at the path of an image that does show and the path of an image that is missing in the output? I'm suspecting a difference.

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[priscillaa9287259]

We are using RoboHelp Classic 2019.

Thanks @Peter Grainge and @Jeff_Coatsworth  for your responses.

I want to clarify few points. Sorry for the confusion caused by my statement that images do not appear correctly only in WebHelp. I re-read the post. The images are not appearing correctly in both RH topic and output topic in the master copy. The issue is with only few topics, not all. Earlier, these topics displayed correct images in the WebHelp when RH project was 60% completed. This means that till that point of time, the topics were behaving properly.

Now that the rebuilding is complete, topics are displaying wrong images. No matter how many times you re-import those topics or even delete the topics first and then import, the topics display correct images for some time, but then these images get replaced with some other images. You do not find any reference or instance of the replaced images in the project folder. It is like RoboHelp auto-cleaned itself.

PFB my comments inline:

1. After reverse engineering, some or all images were missing. 4. When you generate not all the images show. 5. Have you looked at the path of an image that does show and the path of an image that is missing in the output? I'm suspecting a difference.----Images are replaced with incorrect ones in topics. I checked the file again after reading your comments, images are no longer there in the project folder. 
2. You found them in an output and saved them to a folder within the project. 3. At that point the project would not be aware of them so you used Insert Image and added them to a topic by browsing to the folder in the project.----We imported the HTML topics from the WebHelp into our individual RoboHelp projects. We created individual projects for the different modules; removed the scripts and re-inserted the images. When we imported the topics from the WebHelp, the images also got imported into the project folder. We would then browse and select the image from within the project and insert it back into the dropdown. We have folders and sub-folders for topics but no separate folders for images. We would share these individual projects with the writer who would generate the final and complete version. The person maintaining the master copy would re-import our cleaned up version into the master copy. 
3. At the end of that process all the topics show the images that should be there, be that directly in the topic or in a dropdown.---In our  individual projects, the topics still display the correct images. Those few topics in the master copy up to a certain point of time showed the right images. But currently, they do not.
4. Have you used the reports to see if that gives any clues?---Cannot find the Reports option. I can see Project Status Report under Tools. 

[Peter Grainge]

Quick reply for now. I doubt it will help in this case but have you tried deleting the CPD files and reopening the projects? After doing that check the topics in the project and fix any missing images there, then generate. Do the projects then behave?

I'll take another look at your reply later.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Peter Grainge]

1] After reverse engineering, some or all images were missing. 4. When you generate not all the images show. 5. Have you looked at the path of an image that does show and the path of an image that is missing in the output? I'm suspecting a difference.----Images are replaced with incorrect ones in topics. I checked the file again after reading your comments, images are no longer there in the project folder. 

Unless the CPD trick changes things something has to be wrong with your workflow. A missing image should show as a small square. I have never seen personally or in any forum post that it has subsituted another image. I would say it's just not possible.

2] You found them in an output and saved them to a folder within the project. 3. At that point the project would not be aware of them so you used Insert Image and added them to a topic by browsing to the folder in the project.----We imported the HTML topics from the WebHelp into our individual RoboHelp projects. We created individual projects for the different modules; removed the scripts and re-inserted the images. When we imported the topics from the WebHelp, the images also got imported into the project folder. We would then browse and select the image from within the project and insert it back into the dropdown. We have folders and sub-folders for topics but no separate folders for images. We would share these individual projects with the writer who would generate the final and complete version. The person maintaining the master copy would re-import our cleaned up version into the master copy. 

Seems OK to me.

3] At the end of that process all the topics show the images that should be there, be that directly in the topic or in a dropdown.---In our  individual projects, the topics still display the correct images. Those few topics in the master copy up to a certain point of time showed the right images. But currently, they do not.

You are referring to a master copy. One project. You also refer to individual projects. Describe this workflow in more detail as it seems the most likely cause of the issue you are describing.

4] Have you used the reports to see if that gives any clues?---Cannot find the Reports option. I can see Project Status Report under Tools. 

Looking again I don't think it will help.

Come back with the answer to my question in point 3.

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[Amebr]

One possibility springs to mind. If the original project had topics and images sorted in to folders, multiple images might have had the same name.

If you saved the image to, say, the Windows download folder, then inserting the image would import the image into the root folder. So perhaps some of the later images had the same name and were copied over the original image? That could explain why the wrong image displays in topics that were originally correct.

[priscillaa9287259]

@Amebr ,

Thank you for your reply! Some images have unique names while others retain the name that RoboHelp assigns, such as image 4000, image 4001 etc. An incorrect image display different name from the one that has been replaced and there is no relation between the two, eg., Image 4000.png is the right image that should appear but in its place image 300.gif  or image 220.png has appeared.

@Peter Grainge ,

Thanks for replying! PFB my comments inline:

Unless the CPD trick changes things something has to be wrong with your workflow. A missing image should show as a small square. I have never seen personally or in any forum post that it has subsituted another image. I would say it's just not possible.---We are yet to try this approach for this particular project. However, I had deleted the cpd file from another reverse-engineered RoboHelp project. When I opened that project back again, I couldn't see any folders. Does it take a long time for all the folders to appear back again, especially for a reverse-engineered project? We are really running out of time. We have to deliver both the WebHelp and the RoboHelp project to the client.

You are referring to a master copy. One project. You also refer to individual projects. Describe this workflow in more detail as it seems the most likely cause of the issue you are describing. ---The Online Help deals with application modules. 3 writers including myself are working on these modules. So each of us would take up a couple of modules and work. Eg, I will take up topics for the Timesheet module. So there would be a folder called Timesheet and it contains about 8 topics. I would import those topics into my individual RoboHelp project, following all the steps of how to create folder structure, removing scripts etc. I would search and re-insert the images. A topic may have 18 steps described there and each step would have an image in a dropdown. Hence, this RoboHelp project would be loaded with images despite the HTML topics being only 8 in number. I would then send this individual RoboHelp project to the person maintaining the master copy(the master/main RoboHelp project used for generating the complete Help). The person would import my HTML topics, keeping in mind the proper folder structure. I would take up another module and import topics for that module into a new RoboHelp project, and send that across once completed. This is how we had decided to work. 

Now it is the master copy that is giving us problem, and the topics/modules that are affected are not the ones that I had worked on. Only one module that I had worked on got affected, but I was able to fix that by re-importing  the topics from my individual project. The topics in this module are working fine now. But the same cannot be said for the other modules/topics. The problem persists despite re-importing these topics a number of times.

[Peter Grainge]

After deleting the CPD the project should work straightaway. What you are reporting suggests something else is wrong. Did you backup before doing that? If not there are some solutions that normally work.

Everything works in the individual projects but goes belly up when those projects are merged back into one. That's my understanding and I just want to check that.

Is there some reason that you cannot create a merge as that would avoid that step?

What time zone are you in? I am wondering if a web chat is possible? I am in the UK.

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[Peter Grainge]

Did you ever resolve this?

• If you did, please let us know how.
• If not, I have stumbled across something that could be relevant. Let me know.

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