Integration of FM 8 with Robohelp

[Another_Robohelp_User]

Hi
We are one of those companies, who are struggling to integrate FM 8 with Robohelp.

Has anyone in the forum successfully integrated these and have an Online Help system up and running.

Please do reply to forum. It would help me and my team to move forward.

Thanks

[Steve_Gaghan]

Hi Another Robohelp User,

We have successfully integrated FM 8 with RoboHelp. It is not as seemless as we would like it to be, but we have been able to generate WebHelp for our clients.

Steven P. Gaghan

[octechwriter]

Hi folks,

I suppose my answer depends on your definition of success. We have been able to create a fully-functioning help system using FM8 and RH7, but as Steve points out, the integration is not exactly seamless. In fact, it's nowhere near seamless. I'm not sure who has been beta testing these products (if anyone), but the integration between the two could not have been put through very wide-ranging tests before it went to market. Either that, or Adobe failed to listen to their testers.

Cheers!

[katie_barnes]

I am pretty close to finishing my first integrated project with this tool, but I have found it to be very limited when compared to WebWorks offering. I am seriously considering giving it the boot and going back to WebWorks, but I don't have time right now.

I have been especially unhappy with the level of documentation (from Adobe) on the integration btw these two products. I am unhappy with my ability to map to an alternate table style (to go with the help color scheme). And I can't seem to add my own meta tags into the headers at all despite trying to apply a template before the final compile (no changes to the FM source). It's very frustrating b/c I'll have to do a global search and replace in the final files. With WebWorks I had no post processing tasks like this. Bummer!

[katie_barnes]

Oh and as a reply to actually help you in your task, you should take the time to watch Part 3 of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite: Getting Started series. It will tell you two KEY pieces of information. Namely: (1) you need to import the book by reference from within a project, and (2) you need to link a dummy topic to the fmstyles.css to globally make style changes to all your para styles. Check out the online training video. It's a bit tedious and slow, but will definitely be worth your while in the long run.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/robohelp/

[octechwriter]

I don't think you need to use "dummy topics" to make a global change to your CSS styles. If you link the fmstyles in the root folder to your template and reapply the template (which you have to do when you update your project anyway) to your topics, that works just fine. Dummy topics are not needed.

It would be a heck of a lot less complicated if all the topics in the project used one CSS file in the first place.

[katie_barnes]

Templates? I'm not sure what you mean. I imported my book by reference and didn't have to apply any templates to the project. The training video had me make a dummy topic on the top level of the project. Updates to the book cause any template changes to be overridden in my experience. (I tried to use a template to update my headers with an additional meta tag to no effect but I haven't given up completely yet.)

In any case, the training video part 3 was useful to me so I thought I'd recommend it for getting started.

[Maryann8]

After many weeks of work, and much trial and error, my department was able to get "OK" help out of referenced FM files. Our FM files are non-structured, and use a complex matrix of conditional text and shared chapters.
To do this, we needed to:
- Design and apply a separate FM template for the RoboHelp files.
- Design styles in the Robohelp default style sheet, and link to them.
- NOT use Convert AutoNumber to HTML list.
- Re-work all our jpg illustrations (reduce them from 300 ppi to 221 ppi).
- Change all our graphic frames to left-justified.
- Link by hand all our warning icons that formally appeared by using the Advanced setting in FM paragraph designer.
- Use boolean conditional text and set it before importing into RoboHelp.

What has turned out to be the biggest time sink, is that we had to move shared files down from our network on to local user's desktops, then move them back up (since RoboHelp crashes if we try to reference FM files located on the network). This has been a nightmare, with many hours of work accidentally over written.
Since we have common chapters shared by several books.

But the bottom line is, I guess, it can be done.

[Guest]

I have have been successful with integrating FrameMaker 8 and RoboHelp. The only problem that I see is that my RoboHelp project crashes occasionally and I have to re-create it. Although this is frustrating and an inconvience, it has not stopped me from producing a final guide in FrameMaker or in RoboHelp.

The key to a successful integration (in my opinion) is the style mappings. When you first create your RoboHelp project, assign fmstyles.css to the default topic. Create all the same styles in fmstyles that you use in your FrameMaker project. When you import your FrameMaker document by reference, I do check Convert AutoNumber to HTML list and then edit the style mappings to match.

I took an online class offered by iconlogic and found it VERY helpful with getting started using the Technical Communication Suite- the class explained everything and was very informative.

Hope this helps,
Amanda

[Maryann8]

AmandaTSS quote: "I do check Convert AutoNumber to HTML list and then edit the style mappings to match."

The main reason that I don't use the Convert AutoNumber to HTML list is that I lose all the autonumber text in our documents.
And we use autonumber text a lot (Note, Important, Caution, Danger, If, Then, To).
We have thousands of pages, so that would be a lot of work to replace. And losing the autonumber text feature would cause extra work for our writers.

Also, I don't think that assigning fmstyles.css to the default topic does anything magic.
We use that page only for a splash screen with two lines (that is rarely seen), so I don't bother to attach a style sheet.

[peppy3]

Hi Maryann8, thanks for posting your experience to the forum. I just am starting with the test project to "reference FM files into a RoboHelp project" and had already experienced the crashing phenom. If you have any other experience or tips, I'd love to hear them!

[kantimann]

Hello all:
I was at the DocTrain East conf last week and think I've finally discovered a few things (RJ: If you're reading this, plrease confirm/deny).

First, I created a single FM document: RHmaster.fm.

To that document, I instantiated every p-tag, c-tag, cross-reference style, and variable in our entire set of Book template files (Front/TOC,Chap,Index, and so on).

I created a RH project and imported RHmaster.fm and converted it.

I then created both an fmstyles.css with every p-tag and c-tag in RHmaster.fm (and x-refs, too), to be the way I wanted them (or tried, anyway).

Then, I mapped every p-tag and c-tag to the identically-named style in RH. This creates an xml mapping file.

I saved the custom .xml file, and the fmstyles.css files to a safe location.

When I created my next RH project, I imported my book by reference and converted it.

I then imported my xml mapping file, and in the project directory, overwrote both default.css and fmstyles.css files with my custom job. When I reconverted again, I think all was converted as I wanted it, and then that those settings "stuck" with additional conversions to HTML help or whatever the format.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has done anything similar. This was the tack I took when I first used WebWorks: create a dummy doc with every possible Frame style, and map it to whatever/however you want. Then, save it for a "real" frame project.

Comments???

[Maryann8]

That method works for me, too. And pulling up the mapping file makes it fast and easy to set up a new project.

Here's a tip for setting up you master fmstyles.css:
Using Dreamweaver, or even just a text editor, open one of you chapter .css files (pick the one that has most of your styles).

Copy and paste all the styles into your fmstyles.css.
Edit the fmstyles.css, removing repeat styles.
You can reorganize it too, into list sections, heading sections, span sections, etc.
Add comments.
Edit and tidy your styles.

Big hint: each of your styles needs to start with .p
If you want it to show up in for mapping in RoboHelp.
For instance:

p.anchorFig {
margin-top: 24pt;
margin-bottom: 10pt;
font-size: 10pt;
}

Once I paste the styles into fmstyles.css, I like to rename them slightly.
I change the FM_ to M_.
That way, when I check out my chapter.css, I can see which ones RH has added, and which are mine.

You'll notice that once you've successfully mapped all your FM styles to the styles in fmstyles.css,
and no longer have any [Source] left, the chapter css style sheets lose all their FM_styleNameWhatevers,
and only use your nicely edited styles.

I use Dreamweaver to do all my editing, and have never had a problem using it.

[kantimann]

Really good input MaryAnn. Thanks very much.

Unfortunately, after the last post I made, I did more experiments, only to "apparently" find that my global changes in fmstyles.css were NOT getting into the rest of the chapters: I changed all font from Times > Ariel, and the conversion STILL gives me Times. So, first question, what am I doing wrong? Thought I had this sorted out.

Second, I could not find a way to define a paragraph style such that I can adjust the padding, and add a NOTE or CAUTION word. Where do those "master" styles exist? I can edit my NOTE style so that I have a border around a note, but I don't know how to "globally" get the padding above/below into it. The Padding is not an accessible box on the dialog???? And, I think I could figure out how to put NOTE in every instantiation of a Note style, except I don't know where to store it>

Any help appreciated.

[Maryann8]

Font editing:
1. Easy way: I start with a FM template designed for the look I want in my help files. That's where I set my fonts to Arial.
In FM, it is easy to switch templates back and forth. I use one template for my pdf books that are printed, and import the help template when I want to make help.

2. If you want to change all your fonts in RH instead of FrameMaker,
you need to set up the styles in fmstyles.css, and map every style whose font you want to change.
Do not leave any Times FrameMaker styles left as [Source].
After you map your files, you need to do a force update, in order to see any changes.

Background info:

The Players
When you first set up your RoboHelp project, an fmstyles.css is created and placed in the top folder of your project.
After you have linked to an FM book, RoboHelp creates a main folder with the name of the book.

Under the main book folder are sub-folders which represent chapters in the book.
Each chapter sub-folder has it own private CSS: chapterTitle.css.

fmstyles.css
You can find the fmstyles.css in the top folder of your RoboHelp project.
If you know how to work with CSS, edit this file in Dreamweaver or Notepad.
RoboHelp will not overwrite your edits. (Even when you do a force update.)
If you don't know how to work with CSS, I suggest you learn. It's pretty easy. Check out:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/

fmstyles.css is the style sheet you map to when you are in Properties / Style Settings / Style Mappings / Edit / Paragraph Styles.
Any style you map to gets added to your chapter’s CSS AFTER the next force / update to the FrameMaker files.

fmstyles.css contains:
(At the start of a new project) a few simple styles, including the RoboHelp heading styles used to break topics.
Any new styles you add, to map your FM styles to.

Note: The output help HTML topic files do not link to the fmstyles.css.

chapterTitle.css
Inside the subfolder for each chapter is another CSS, someChapterName.css. This CSS contains:
- The styles for FrameMaker format tags that are mapped to Source.
- The names for these auto-generated styles have a prefix "FM_"
For example, "FM_step1”
- A copy of the mapped-to styles sent from fmstyles.css

You can edit these local CSS files, but you need to prevent them from being overridden,
because RoboHelp rewrites these files every time you do a force update.
but this becomes a Herculean task if you have many books that have many chapter files.

Note: The output HTML help topic files link directly to a chapterTitle.css.

[McTagRoy]

My problem - after meticulously mapping my FM formats to formats I created in fmstyles.css - is that all of certain paragraph styles become bold. It's almost like it picks up the bold tag from the heading. The .css looks ok in Notepad. Everything that should have a font weight = normal does. The string <span style="font-weight: bold;"> is riddled throughout my topics. I can't figure out where the project is picking this up, nor how to correct it globally.

Has anyone else had this problem?

[grammatophile]

This is the only method that I have discovered that works. Has anyone ever discovered something different?

I know that TCS2 apparently fixes this issue; still, until we buy that product we are stuck using this method.

Charles

[Peter Grainge]

Charles

You seem to be saying TCS2 gives you help to FM capability. If that is the case, sorry but it doesn't.

Have I understood you correctly?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[grammatophile]

Peter, I was referring to Maryann8's method of fixing the formatting issues going from FM to RH.

Until we buy TCS2, we are stuck with the problems raised by her and others. I am wondering whether her solutions are still the only show in town.

Charles

[StillTim]

Help is actually our primary product. We sell (customized) printed manuals to our customers at an additional fee. So, we really want to go help to frame, not vice versa. Creating a Frame document is just a waste of our time if the customer hasn't purchased that option. It would be really helpful if the "Printed Documentation" export in Robohelp included Frame as an option. But, in our version it doesn't (we're actually using the latest versions, but we acquired them slightly before the tech communications suite was released).

Does anyone who has the suite know if this is an option?

BTW - if it's not, PLEASE Adobe add it for the next version of the suite.

[Peter Grainge]

Tim.

To ask Adobe for this you need to go to http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform as they do not monitor the forums.

Its an additional step but I'm told FM imports Word documents OK.

[Newsgroup_User]

Unfortunately, no. That's kind of like asking the butcher to put the
steer back together so that you can walk it home. The TCS workflow was
designed so that the content is authored in FM and published through
RoboHelp.