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August 11, 2011
Question

Rebuild source files from Webhelp output?

  • August 11, 2011
  • 3 replies
  • 1805 views

Today I deleted an unwanted *.css file from my RH9 project with the result that 300 images files were suddenly deleted. Subsequently, I reimported the source Word files to create a new image folder. The result of this, even though I cleared the selection boxes on the "Do you want to over-write" prompt, was that RH9 proceded to overwrite the topics anyway. So I have now lost 20 reformatted topics.

Why these things happened is not my main concern right now, though clearly it indicates that RH has some serious issues in file handling. (It has happened before).

Before RH9 deleted and over-wrote all my topic files, I generated webhelp output, and I want to know if I can recreate those topics to my project somehow using the latest Webhelp output files.

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3 replies

August 11, 2011

Thanks, good people, for such prompt and helpful responses.

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 11, 2011

How did you delete the CSS file? I cannot think of any way whereby it would affect topics.


See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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August 11, 2011

Hi Peter. I deleted using the right-click Delete command in the Proj Mgr.

There certainly seems to be something buggy in the way RH9 handles its pointers within those "virtual" folders. As we have discussed before, when I import Word files into a project, RH creates an unwanted (by me) *.css file and also a folder with the name _files. Sometimes this folder contains images as I can see by expanding the folder in Proj Mgr. Other times, it appears to contain nothing, but if I delete it, or delete an unwanted *.css, suddenly images are blown away.

If I ever get my real work done, I am pretty certain I can create a script for reproducing this issue and send it in.

Michael West | Business Improvement | Aurecon

August 17, 2011

Your post seemed much the same as when this happened with the CSS file. My reaction was "why cover that ground again rather than report what happened when you tried what I had suggested?"

I've offered to try importing one of these documents for you to see if I can repeat what is going on and maybe find the cause and that offer remains open.

I have not experienced this or seen it reported in fifteen years of using RoboHelp so there's no experience to call on, all I can do is try to find out what is going on but I cannot do that with any documents I have.


See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge


Appreciate the help, as always. I doubt I'll spend any more time analysing this problem, having lost about 3 days repairing the damage. We are getting rid of the application that produced the dodgy source files and have completed transferring the content into RH9. Everyone is happy with the new RH9 output and they think I'm a hero. I'm happy now too, though I will be submitting some enhancement requests to Adobe.

Disclaimer - http://www.aurecongroup.com/apac/disclaimer/

Captiv8r
Legend
August 11, 2011

Hi there

Indeed you are able to re-use WebHelp output as source, but you will need to scrub them of code as described at the link below.

Click here to view

Cheers.... Rick

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August 11, 2011

Hi Rick! Thank you for the prompt response. If I scrub code then I presume that means I lose all pop-ups, Drop-downs, image maps, etc?

Michael West | Business Improvement | Aurecon

Community Expert
August 11, 2011

Rick's website specifically states that DHTML effects (drop-downs and expanding text etc) will have to be recreated, simply because it's much easier than trying to hack code. This may also include popups, but I *think* image maps should be okay as that uses standard HTML. But I'm not 100% certain of this.