PDF Output failure

[Lina_ann]

Hi All

I have installed RH 8 with Acrobat 9.0. I was able to print PDF until about a week back. I cannot understand why RH 8 is not able to print to PDF.  The error that it generates in the Output View reads as follows:

Internal Error encountered, Failed to generate Printed Documentation

This is after it has built all topics, Updated page numbers, TOC, Savign the Document. But just before Cleaning up TEmporary Files, it generates this message.

I am able to print to work and then generate a PDF but because I am using RH HTML a lot of formatting in Word goes haywire. I have to manually correct 400 pages to generate a PDF from the Word. I tried reinstalling the RH sofware and ran a repair. I also reinstalled Acrobat 9.0 which is shipped with it.

RH still fails to generate a PDF.

Please HELP as this is urgent and I need to deliver my final document as of today.

Thanks

Lina

[Peter Grainge]

Given that even when you select PDF only, RH has to generate a Word document which is hidden from you, I am surprised you are seeing any difference when you go via Word.

I suspect that maybe a problem that hit RH7 could be relevant. See Item 33 at http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/rh7/using_rh7.htm

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[Lina_ann]

Hi Peter,

I had actually tried this 2 days back as the Support Forum was down and I came across this in your website.

But it did not help, I am still getting the same error message when generating PDF.

Thanks

Lina

[Peter Grainge]

This is a problem with the two apps talking to each other. If they are not doing that and the RH7 fix is not working you may have to live with generating to Word. That you may have to take up with Tech Support so let's look at the problem with generating to Word.

What is different between when you generated to PDF and when you generate to Word?

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[Lina_ann]

Hi Peter,

I have tried every step except for Macros mentioned on your site to fix the formating errors in Word. I have also created a separate template but as you are aware RH does not allow mapping of all styles only styles that are user-defined.

I have also installed the new patch of RH. I just dont know how to resolve the formatting issues and I have 400 pages. I think the best is to quit using RH 8 and go back to RH 6 which was more stable.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Lina

[Peter Grainge]

As far as printing is concerned, very little changed between RH6 and RH8. Are you saying RH6 printed without these formatting issues and RH8 does not? I find that very difficult to believe unless something else changed in your topics.

Is the template you are using one you created? In my Printed Documentation article, I explain that I often see problems caused by doing just that. The templates seem to be perfectly good but unless they are based on the supplied Style Mapping template, problems can and do occur. Import the styles from a home brewed template into Style Mapping and it works. Crazy but true.

Also the templates change between versions and best practice is not to continue using the same template. Instead you take the new version template and use Word's organiser to copy your styles in.

Maybe it would help if you spelled out what these formatting issues are, maybe with some screenshots inserted using the camera icon above.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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[Willam van Weelden]

Hi,

I am able to print to work and then generate a PDF but because I am using RH HTML a lot of formatting in Word goes haywire.

If you let Robo create a pdf, it will first create a word document in the background and will then create a pdf from  that word document. So your styles will still be messed up. You best create a special style sheet for outputting to Word, or create your custom style mapping.dot. This way, you can control the way that Robo sets your styles in the Word document.

Also, check out Peter's article on Word macro's for some very handy macro's to make your Word editing a lot easier.

Greet,

Willam