A

Anonymous

Question

PDFs launch fine from help toc and index, but content can't be searched

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
July 28, 2010
2 replies
1908 views

Hi,

I've started to include .PDFs with my help output. I'm launching them either from the TOC or the Index as additional information. They are included as baggage files and are referenced within the help. This works fine.

However, can anyone confirm whether the content of these PDFs, once referenced from the main help, will be included in the search?

So, if I searched for a specific word which exists within one of these PDFs (i.e. not in the title) would it be returned along with the main help search results?

Is there any way to do this?

I've read certain info that seems to hint that this is possible, but it certainly doesn't work for me.

Confirmation either way would be great!

Thanks for any help.

Regards,

Feebeegeebee.

WebHelp

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

Thanks for your question--I didn't even know this was possible OUTSIDE of RoboHelp, but it has been available for several years:

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-search-for-text-inside-multiple-pdf-files-at-once/

If anyone has an OCR program that they can chain to the PDF search process, see Comment #9

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

See my RoboHelp Tour. The PDF has to have a link to it from a topic. If you only have TOC and Index links, I'm not sure that is enough.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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A

Anonymous

Then you do need to have the PDF as a baggage file if you want search to work. A redirect to a PDF outside the project will not get it searched.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Hello!

Just to clarify how this now works for me...

The PDFs need to be included as baggage files within your project.

The PDFs also need to be linked in at least one of the help topics. I included a "References" topic with links to them.

My confusion arose from the way I publish multiple helps, which are released in a central area, with directories for each help system.
I thought I could place the PDFs in a directory within that central area and then incorporate them in the main and subsidiary help searches. In order to link from all help systems, I would need to merge all my help projects and do the above (which I don't really want to do at this stage).

For now, being able to search from the main product help is fine. One day I might merge all the subsidiary help projects in...

Thanks to Peter and all who responded with advice. It will be great to ensure all the relevant info will be searchable, regardless of output format.

Regards,

Feebeegeebee.

Captiv8r

Legend

And your version of RoboHelp would be?

I think this ability was only offered via RoboHelp Server in versions prior to 8. Beginning with version 8, standard WebHelp allows it as well as RoboHelp Server.

Cheers... Rick

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A

Anonymous

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

I usually remember to specify that...

RH8. I publish in standard webhelp.

Feebeegeebee

A

Anonymous

Just for additional info, I wondered whether the hierarchy of my help system might be to blame i.e.

- mainhelpdir

- secondaryhelpdir

- tertiaryhelpdir

- additionaldocsdir

If I was launching the help from within the mainhelpdir directory, I wondered if trying to search the content of PDFs in the additionaldocsdir would be the problem, as it was at te same level in the help hierarchy.

However, I moved additionaldocsdir to sit beneath mainhelpdir in the hierarchy, updated the links and references and the search still doesn't pick up on words used within the pdfs.

Anyone able to shed any light?

Thanks,

Feebeegeebee

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