Printed Documentation output is taking too long to generate document

[lsb1098]

I have a very large project in Robohelp 2019. Each month I generate a word document using Printed Documentation output. The generated word document is about 3000 pages. It normally takes about 6 hours to complete, but this month it started taking about 21 hours to complete. We have all of the patches applied for Robohelp 2019 and we doubled the memory, but that did not help. Any ideas on why it is suddenly taking so long to finish? Thanks in advance.

[Peter Grainge]

2019 Classic or New UI? 

Any significant changes?

There aren't any specific limits to the size of a Word document, it's a combination of text, images etc but 3000 pages is large by any standard. In Snippets on my site there is a link to information on that or Google for later information. 

I appreciate it has been working but it's possible some Word update is at play.

Could you try duplicating the SSL or preset and deleting different halves, then merge them in Word. 

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[lsb1098]

I am using 2019 Classic and I did not have any significant changes in the project. 

I am able to generate rather quickly using smaller subsets of the project. It only has the problem when I try to select all of the topics. I'm just curious as to why it suddenly takes so much longer to generate. I did update MS Office the other day, but that did not help either.

[Peter Grainge]

On the basis that the project has not changed and RoboHelp has not changed, that leaves:

Your environment. Have you spoken to your IT people? I have seen a change in virus protection bring RoboHelp to its knees. Is RoboHelp slow in other respects?

One thing you could try is creating a new SSL, don't duplicate the existing SSL, it must be a new one.

Are you generating to the same drive as your project and is that a local drive?

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[lsb1098]

Have you spoken to your IT people? I have seen a change in virus protection bring RoboHelp to its knees. Is RoboHelp slow in other respects? -- My IT person said that Robohelp is excluded from the antivirus, and RH is not slow otherwise.

Are you generating to the same drive as your project and is that a local drive? -- Yes, same drive as project and it is local.

So I did create a new SSL and had interesting output. It finished in about 9 hours, which is better than 21. But here is the weird thing: it created 2 Word docs. One is a 1997-2003 version Word doc, and the other is a regular Word doc. The 1997 version is correct with all images and table of contents (looks good), but the regular Word doc is missing TOC and images. Very odd. I've never seen it produce 2 Word docs in one run before. So now I'm thinking it is something screwy with Word, not Robohelp.

[Peter Grainge]

EDITED REPLY

In the SSL did you select DOCX or DOC and could that have changed?

That would allow RoboHelp to generate DOCX to a folder when there is a DOC version there.

Are the file dates and times different?

It sounds like the new SSL might have a different file format. Check both SSLs and try in the new one generating both types.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information 

[lsb1098]

I did have .doc selected, so I guess that's why it generated both versions. I tried it again with .docx and it just generated the one version. It took about 14 hours to finish this time. I guess I can live with that - I only have to run it once a month and I can do it on a weekend if needed. Thanks for your help!