Missing images in Word Document

[edobkin]

I am having a problem with some missing images when I generate a Word document from RoboHelp HTML. I have seen similar problems in these forums and have tried the solutions without success. I have Word 2002 SP3. I have images in my document that have conditional tags applied to them. Up until now, I have not had any trouble with them generating in Word. I added some more images (using RH to import them into my doc) and I set up the conditional tags to print those and not the others. In some cases, the images are generated and in others they are not. There is no X in its place just a blank line. I have tried erasing the .CPD file and re-generating. I have tried removing and re-inserting the image. Also, if I generate the html web help, the images are all there. No problem. I have tried embedding the images and using links and get the same result. I have not tried to just generate the PDF because I need to tweak the document in Word first before generating the PDF to make everything look good.

I have also uninstalled and reinstalled Robohelp. That didn't help either. The image properties all have none (not left or right). I am running out of ideas to solve this problem. Everything worked great before so I can't figure out what could possibly be wrong especially since the webhelp is fine. I also tried moving the project to my C drive. No change either. The project usually resides on a network drive.

If anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it since I have a document to print for a customer ASAP! Thank you in advance.

Evelyn

[Peter Grainge]

Welcome to the forum.

From the sound of it you have either seen the topic on my site or read the same information in these forums. I cannot think of anything else to add apart from asking where you are generating to. I know your project is on the hard disk and deleting the CPD will hopefully have cured any problems caused by its having been on a network drive. Perhaps though you are still generating to the network?

If you import some of the good and some of the problematic topics into a new project, does it change the behaviour?

Do keep that project off the network.

[edobkin]

Yes, I have read quite a few topics regarding this problem. I am curious as to what the problem is with using a network drive? After re-installing RH, I did not generate to the local hard drive. I will try this again tomorrow at work. I tried the local drive before re-installing and I believe I had erased the CPD file and had no luck. If I can't get it to work, I will probably start importing each topic into a new project like you said to get a working document. This is very frustrating. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Evelyn

I am curious as to what the problem is with using a network drive?

There are many issues with working this way. All one needs to do is poke around a bit on the forums to see that all sorts of issues can result. However, the hardest sells are those like yourself, where you have been working without issue. Until now. Typically folks that are in this position are very reluctant to move locally after being lucky for so long working on a LAN.

At the heart of the issue is the fact a Microsoft Access database is involved. These are notorious for having issues when used in a LAN environment. In the corporate IT world I came from, Access databases were banned from being placed on the network in ANY location.

The typical scenario is this. I just can't figure this out. I created a folder. Then it disappeared. Now RoboHelp won't let me create it again! The folder was indeed created here, but the project database lost track of it.

Cheers... Rick

[Peter Grainge]

Post back if after importing the test topics you find you still have the problem.

[edobkin]

I finally solved my problem. I went ahead and moved both of my projects to my hard drive. That still didn't work, so I deleted all of the problem images from the project and then re-generated the printed documentation without them to get a clean Word document. After that, I went back in to each of the affected topics and re-inserted the images. That seemed to do the trick. I also removed the additional images for other conditions and stopped using conditional tags on images. Hopefully, I will not see this problem again. Thanks for your support!

Evelyn

[kingde]

Is there a good step-by-step tutorial on importing Word 2007 to RH8 HTML? Something is missing in what I've found, so far or there's a major glitch. I've tried renaming so there are no spaces in the Word file name (graphics were already that way). I have three documents of various sizes I've imported and they're all missing the images. It doesn't matter whether the PNGs are embedded or linked none of them come through. The linked document shows the path for the file but it does not display. Or is it the problem the PNG format which I had to use partially due to the size of one document and Word to Acrobat crashing.

I used RoboHelp back in the late 90s when it was owned by Blue Sky (WIN 95) and loved it. I downloaded the RH8 30 day trial in the hopes of putting an HTML file together real quick and then write up a justification for purchasing RH. Part of that justification is Linux I'm told won't do PDFs so oops got a couple extra manuals to do. Don't even get me started on Word's HTML on crack it generates! I found this out as it numbers images then decides to drop one here or there...forget trying to figure out their HTML. I'm familiar with CSS, HTML and XML but it's typical MS bloat and garbage generation right up there with FrontPage. Oops, got on that soap box didn't I.

So long story short is I need to come up with something where I don't have to manually fix 200+ screen shots in various guides and manuals. (Already redone screen shots a few times due to resolution issues and HTML would fix that problem. Some of the buttons, etc. used in the SW just don't do well in Word, Acrobat and in print.) Um short deadline right now of 8/5. If I'd known of the Linux issue I'd have started working on this a couple months ago.

Thanks, Deb

p.s. This is proprietary manuals for software that has not been released yet. So unfortunately I cannot share any files.

[Peter Grainge]

I assume you have looked at the article on my site referred to earlier in the thread. The principals are pretty much unchanged.

If you look at the project in Windows Explorer, do you see the images there? Where are they relative to the topic, maybe in a subfolder to where the topic is and the folder is called Images? If so, go to RH Project Manager and create that subfolder there, miraculously the images will appear.

Also the following was posted on HATT a while back and could be the cause of your problems.

****************************************

what I found was that the pictures
that disappeared were formatted differently than the ones that
appeared.  To see this formatting, open the Word doc, right-click
the picture and select Format Picture.  A tabbed property sheet
appears.  Click the Layout tab.  If the picture is not set as
Wrapping Style: In line with text, it will not be dealt with properly
when imported into RoboHelp.  My solution was to go through the Word
docs I wanted to import and change each picture to In line with text.

****************************************

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Peter Grainge]

I am puzzled why you posted in this thread. The thread is about images missing when you generate printed documentation. Your question is quite the reverse.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[kingde]

Sorry I'm sleep deprived and was being dragged off to an impromptu meeting so didn't get a chance to reread what I wrote. I've now found your site and also Googled for RH8 tutorials. May have found at least part of my solution. I'd so LOVE to get away from Word 2007 and its wonderful quirks. The majority of the graphics are using the inline with text option.

If I can get the largest document semi finished (read doing screen shots for at least the third time due to Word's foibles) this week then I plan on taking another whack at RH8. With luck I'll come up with a sample for the team to look at that will knock their socks off. Use hot spots in lieu of call outs to explain the user interface. Then push to do the next version of the SW documentation directly in RH8. RH8 would have cost a lot less than the amount of time I've spent recapturing screen shots and trying to get them closer to print quality (or even viewable in Word) without being totally blurred.

For example, one of the programs in the suite of software is using 11 x 11 px icons and navigation buttons are a light blue (and small too). Looks fine in a browser but terrible when inserted into a document that isn't being viewed in a browser. Since there is no real plan to provide hard copy manuals I believe RH8 is the most cost effective/productive solution considering the additional Linux issue.

I haven't had a chance to peek under the hood but was impressed to see CSS which is a big plus.

Thanks, Deb

[NL_Derek-GsBV5a]

Hi all,

I have suffered from missing images in Word output for ages now. But today I got a step closer to a solution.

Here's the situation:

I generate a word document to be used in the factory and a CHM file to be used in the field; they contain alignment and adjustment procedures. Single-sourcing at its best, actually.

Like Evelyn, I had problems with images just being missing from the word doc, no error, no indication, nothing. The first thing I found was that using Images-Link to document in the first screen of the Printed Documentation wizard resulted in an easily-seen red cross in the Word doc when an image got lost. Also I found that removing spaces and other special characters from all image filenames seemed to help. So I just manually plugged in the now easily-found lost images.

In the last few days, I generated a  new version of both outputs, and a few (six out of about 200) images were missing. I decided to investigate yet again, and found that the Field (can be seen in Word using Alt-F9) of a `lost' image had the form

whilst a `good' image had a field

Note that one refers to directory ..\Images (incorrect), the other to directory Images (correct).

I was unable to discover any rhyme or reason for this error, but it did suggest a workaround; after exporting from RoboHelp, I simply made a second copy of the Images directory one level higher, so that Word could find the images wherever it looked.

Then I made my Word document portable by embedding the images into it as follows:

1. In Word, select Edit > Links...

2. Select all the files listed in the dialog box (use shift-click)

3. Check the checkbox Save pictures in document

4. Click OK

It took a minute to embed all the pictures, but I could then save the Word document and send it off to the factory to include in their database.

Hope this helps,

--- Derek

[IR-PROGNOSIS]

I have been suffering with this problem of missing graphics for some time, even with RoboHelp 8. However, it now seems that I have found the answer and just in case anyone else is still having this problem I thought I would share what worked for me.

After doing some Google searching I found the web site: http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_graphics.htm where the following solution was offered for problems with Mail Merge graphics:

"If you find that on merging to a new document the resulting paths have been changed to something like: {INCLUDEPICTURE"../,./../program%20files/My Program/ProductPictures/ImageName.jpg"\*MERGEFORMATINET} and the merge does not work correctly:-

(In Word 2003) Select Tools > Options > General > Web Options and uncheck "Update links on save""

Whatever this has to do with anything I do not know, but it magically fixed my problem and all images are now appearing in the RoboHelp Word output.

Cheers,

Chris

[Peter Grainge]

Chris

Can I just check that all you did was uncheck that Word setting before generating the output?

If any of your topics started life in Word and were imported, you might also like to look at the last paragraph in Snippet 125 on my site.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[IR-PROGNOSIS]

Hi Peter,

I have had this problem for some time, and yes the topics did originally start life as Word documents. I have spent over a week concentrating on trying every possible solution including changing the file names of both the topics and the graphics, i.e removing all spaces, changing to lower case, reducing the the filename length. I did find that one of your solutions to move the position of the topic in the TOC structure did also work, but that was not suitable for my purposes. Following that I rebuilt the TOC, which was quite a job on an 800 topic project, but even that did not work. Of course, I replaced the .cpd file on many occasions, also without success.

So, I was becoming quite frustrated with the whole thing, which made me more determined to find an answer. Then, this 'miracle' appeared and I just unchecked the 'Update links on save' box and all was fixed. I have no idea what the connection is, but it worked for me! Obviously, it was Derek's post that gave me the clue as I also saw that the offending graphics had the field code with the "../Images..." path. After unchecking this box, the full file path is now used by Word.

Cheers,

Chris

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks.

If you hit the problem again, try what is in the Snippet. I will add your information to that.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Unable to view images of Math equations:

I'am unable to view images of "math equations" in the Printed Documentation output. The printed documentation is generated from HTML files that has these math equations.

On generating the printed documentation, the MS Word output displays these math equations shrunk and the only way to display them in normal size, is to manually resize them in the RoboHelp application.  Is there any way in RH, that i can try to resize the math equations at one go and have them displayed in the MS Word output?

Also, on importing the HTML files in RH, the image files of the math equations are not found in RH (unlike the normal images that get stored in the imported folder).

Require your help. Thanks.