List styles not showing up in Conversion Settings dialog

[M_Boyd]

In linked Frame documents, RoboHelp collapses multi-level unordered lists (bullets and subbullets) to a single flat list. So this in FrameMaker:

• Fruit
• Vegetables
  • Carrots
  • Peas

Becomes this in RoboHelp:

• Fruit
• Vegetables
• Carrots
• Peas

This happens when I map both bullet and subbullet styles to "Normal" and choose "Convert Autonumber to HTML List". To resolve this, I can either map my subbullet styles to Source (which has its own issues), or I can map the subbullets to a different paragraph style. So I tried creating a list style. But now I can't select the new style from the Conversion Settings dialog. It doesn't show up in the RoboHelp Style drop-down, and I can't manually enter the style name. It's strange, because my other custom styles are listed.

I've tried switching to a differents CSS file and even restarting RoboHelp, but it's still not reading my changes. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Melanie

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Depends on what you've chosen as the conversion setting - I seem to remember that there's 2 or 3 choices of how you want lists treated when they come over from FM. My experience has been that they don't come over very clean when you tell them to be converted to HTML-type lists, but that they look better if just left as text.

[M_Boyd]

Jeff, what do you mean by "just left as text"? Do you mean selecting Source?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Sorry, I didn't have RH open when I replied. It's in the Conversion Settings in the Paragraph section around the Autonumber area (below the stuff). Your options are Ignore, Convert to something (HTML list I think is one of the options), and convert to text. I use the "Convert Autonumber to Text" one to bring bulleted lists over.

[M_Boyd]

When I choose "Convert Autonumber to Text," I lose the hanging indent.

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

Hi M_

It looks like you're mapping your 1st and 2nd level lists to the same css style in RH.

Try (for example) mapping

• 1st level bullets to BodyLevel1
• 2nd level lists to BodyLevel2
• Converting your autonumber to HTML List

You should get nested UL's in your HTML, although IIRC there's an odd bugaboo if you have a single 2nd level list item at the end of your nested lists. I think that one's a bug in the conversion process, and is best handled by avoiding that situation in FM.

-Matt Sullivan

@mattrsullivan

[M_Boyd]

Matt,

I've tried mapping to an "Indented" style in my CSS, but I still don't get nested ULs. The subbullets are indented, but they have the same bullet style as the first-level bullets. That's because it's actually only one UL, instead of two. The HTML looks like this:

<ul>

<li><p>Fruit</p></li>

<li><p>Vegetables</p></li>

<li><p class="Indented">Carrots</p></li>

<li><p class="Indented">Peas</p></li>

</ul>

I was trying to use RH lists as a way to keep the different bullet styles for bullets and subbullets, but I would love to avoid that if there's a different way.

[M_Boyd]

OK, I finally figured out the answer to my original issue: Any style that's associated with li instead of p in the CSS will not show up on the Conversions Settings dialog.

I'm completely new to RH lists and to linking FM files, so it took me awhile to figure out some things that are probably really obvious to everyone else. After taking this advice into consideration and spending a lot of time experimenting, I found a solution. I created a paragraph style with a bullet (different than my top-level bullet) and a hanging indent. I mapped the paragraph style to my subbullet styles in FM, and chose "Convert Autonumber to Text" in the Conversion Settings. It works!

[bearnina]

Did you map your list levels in the HTML Setup pod in FrameMaker before you linked the book? You can map/nest, for example, Bullet1 to list level 1, Bullet2 to list level 2, and so on--likewise with ordered list tags. Don't forget to 'Include Autonumber' as well.