Problems mapping list styles when publishing to word

[Nick27]

RH8 HTML

I'm publishing some work to word docs and I'm getting some problems every which way I try to get around it.

First, I published based on the CSS, this didnt work so well. My custom bullet images weren't displayed, numbered lists that come after a snippet were out of alignment.

So instead I'm trying to map the styles using my .dot word template. but this isnt working properly either.

I 'import' it into RH to be used when publishing, but when it comes to selecting the styles used in RH and mapping them to the styles in the template I can't. The list of styles I have to choose from is quite small, from what I understand it will automatically map the headings, and other styles that are common. So I only have a bodytext style, caption, reference, and hyperlink styles, plus several other random RH styles that appear in my styles list that I cant remove - drop-down hotspot, expanding text blah blah (I'd love to delete these or get them out of the list but I cant do that either)

But I cant map the list and number styles I have, this is a problem, because when the list styles I have publish, the custom bullets that I have set are not being displayed, the text and indents are ok, but no custom images. also there is an issue with the number lists coming after a snippet and the indents being completely wrong.

Any help appreciated.

[Peter Grainge]

See the article on Printed Documentation on my site. See also the RH Tour (from About RH8) where there is some information about lists and printing them.

Good luck.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

thanks....I think there is an issue with numbered lists and snippets thats screwing things up for that, as for the custom bullet images....Im at a complete loss, the indents work fine, but no bullet image comes with it.. your site is very helpful, but nothing that really applies to these issues.

word is so frustrating sometimes.

the list styles that I create wont show up in the Styles pane, it only shows character or paragraph styles, and means I cant apply them anywhere....even if I want to manually apply the styles after publishing.

and its not picking up the line spacing either with my numbered lists.....gaaaaah, another reason why I'm fed up with printed documentation....post publishing formatting is always an issue.

suppose if I had RH Word version things would be better.......

[Peter Grainge]

RH for Word would not improve things. Sorry.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Is nit perhaps a case that I'm simply doing my list styles completely wrong in RH?

This is the CSS that I use for them, but I've seen other examples of people using a

Normal+style-list: inside url (image.jpg)

My CSS for the custom bullets I have are this, am I implementing these incorrectly?

li.NoteList {
    font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 10pt;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
    margin-top: 10px;
    margin-left: 6px;
    list-style: url("Images/note.jpg");
}
li.TipList {
    font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 10pt;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
    margin-top: 10px;
    margin-left: 6px;
    list-style: url("Images/tip.jpg");
}
li.BulletList {
    font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 10pt;
    color: #808080;
    margin-left: 0px;
    list-style: square;
    margin-top: 6px;
    margin-bottom: 6px;
}
li.NumberList {
    font-size: 10pt;
    color: #808080;
    list-style: decimal;
    font-family: Arial;
    margin-bottom: 6.0pt;
    margin-top: 6.0pt;
}

[Peter Grainge]

I'll let Willam comment on the CSS but it looks OK.

I think it is simply that you are using images for bullets and they do not port to the printed document.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Willam van Weelden]

Hi,

Your styles are correct.

Greet,

Willam

[Nick27]

thanks, any ideas on why my list styles aren't carrying over line spacing to the printed documents?

i've set 6pt on all of them, and tried 6px but nothing is making them budge.

[Willam van Weelden]

Hi,

This is a bit of a guess, so you'll have to try it out.

As far as I know, a list in Word is a paragraph style with a numbering format. My guess is, that while exporting to Word, RoboHelp (partially) ignores the list style, since Word doesn't have a corresponding style. Instead, RoboHelp maps the list style to the paragraph you use in the list.

If found in Robo7, that only the bullet style of a list is taken to the Word doc, while Robo takes the paragraph style

for everything else. I work a little different with lists, so this may not be the case for you.

If you use a special paragraph style for lists, try mapping that style to a paragraph style in style mapping.dot.

Greet,

Willam

[Nick27]

Well, I removed all my List styles in the word template, and created new bullet, number, tip, and note styles as paragrpah styles with bullets and numbers etc.

I tried publishing again but nothing changed.

What I did change though, was rather than embed images, I set the Use a folder ot Store Images check box in RH, and that is now displaying my Note and Tip custom bullets correctly. So at least I'm closer in 1 respect.

my number and bullet lists use the correct number and bullet that I set, but the spacing is not working at all. I try to re-apply the styles in word, but the I lose all the Bold and Italic formatting that I had, which is a real pain in the.....

still cant understand why the styles is carrying all the properties, except the line spacing.

[Peter Grainge]

Nick

If you would like to create a single topic project with your CSS and Word template, I will take a look although I am not optimistic on this one. See the Contact page on my site.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

OK thanks Peter, I just sent it through.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks.

[Peter Grainge]

Your problem is basically that your list style is OK in webhelp but not in printed output, correct? As far as I can see the problem is caused by the size of your image. When I replaced your image with a 16X16 pixel image, the appearance was correct. You can see that by creating a printed document from the project you sent me and right clicking your bullet. Select Format Picture and reduce the size. There is another issue you may not have picked up on yet. If you press Enter at the end of one of the list items in Word, it does not create another list item whereas the paragraphs that are formatted as ordinary bullets or numbers will create a new list item. Depending on what happens to your documents after generation, that may or may not be important.

I suspect your best way forward will be a table with the image in the left cell and the text in the right cell. This will overcome the way Word handles the content.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Thanks Peter, that works perfectly.

I think I will stay with this method, at least it gives me the chance to quickly change the image if I need to, rather than a table. Also means I dont have to go back over all the topics again and fix it for the 3rd time.

Did you have any luck with the numbered lists after a snippet? That is still causing me issues.

[Peter Grainge]

Is that problem in this thread?

If it is, just repeat it to save me reading through this yet again.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Haha no worries, I did briefly mention it here too, the issue is that a numbered list that follows a snippet which is also formatted as a numbered list throws the alginment of that second list.

so it looks like this

eg.

1. Do blah (snippet)

2. Do blah (snippet)

3. Do blah (snippet)

4. Do blah (topic text)

5. Do blah (topic text)

It shows up when you publish the test project that I sent you as well. It only breaks in printed docs, not web help or anything else. A problem with the line spacing, and the margin indents occurs.

I also posted it in another thread, but had no responses.....

Thanks.....

[Peter Grainge]

I have spent a whole day fixing a broken project so forgive me if I defer looking at this one right now. I will take another look, just not tonight.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

not a problem at all mate, I'd be glad to get any input when ever you have time....

[Peter Grainge]

The alignment below is what I am seeing in your project in Design Editor, Preview and Online help. I think that is what you get too.

In printed output, 4, 5 and 6, do not indent whereas the snippet does.

Selecting 4,5 and 6 in Word and clicking the Increase Indent icon fixes it. A pain but it is a workaround. Report it as a bug.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Nick27]

Yeah thats exactly what I get, a very annoying bug, but at least confirmed I guess.

Is the line spacing working when you publish? None of my numbered lists carry the 6pt before and after spacing, when I see them in Word the spacing is zero, another thing I have to manually change.

[Peter Grainge]

What you are looking at above is a screenshot of the printed document.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[stabnik]

Not sure if I'm understanding everything here, but I'm having a similar problem.  So, not sure if I should b

e posting a new thread or if it's related to this problem.

In our RoboHelp 8 project, we have in some places a problem in the DOCX output (Word) with nested lists. The second level is interrupted with a blank first level number, before it continues with the rest of the second level list. Note the highlighted "1.".  This was not intended.  I checked the HTML, and the code is the same here in other similar places that output correctly. Is this issue similar to the issue in this thread?  (Or should I post my question elsewhere?)  This project is very large, so it would be nice to not have to scroll through 1000 pages in the DOCX to specifically find this problem to correct.

[Peter Grainge]

Right thread but no easy answer. Lists are just a nightmare when it comes to exporting to Word. There's a topic on my site and whilst it may be old, nothing has changed. Good luck.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[stabnik]

Thanks, Peter.

I'll try to find a way to simplify the format.  Though it sometimes does seem like RoboHelp and Word have a mind of their own - as we've all seen.  Like, the printed output process just repeated a chunk of text for no reason, when the WebHelp and CHM output were fine.  (but that's another thread)

[Guest]

Hi Guys

This is not ideal - but I have a workaround that I use to export numbered lists into my Word template (which uses outline numbering). First, I made a copy of my Word template, and in this copy I removed all the outline numbering. The styles are still there, but no numbering is applied. I also removed all bullets from the bulleted styles.

Step 2 is to create styles in my RH CSS with exactly the same names. Then I create the printed documentation, select the copy template. Mostly, the styles map automatically - I manually link any that RH doesn't find for itself. The resultant Word doc uses all the correct styles, but the actual formatting is not correct.

Now the sneaky bit. I open a new document from the original template and copy the content of the RH created document into it - and the formatting is now mostly correct. The last step is to do a Find & Replace to replace each numbered style with itself (in my case, replace the style ListNumber1 with ListNumber1). This forces the styles to pick up their formatting from the defined format for the style.

BTW, I am using RH8 with Word 2003.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Greg