RoboHelp 2022 doesn't show topic CSS styles after upgrade

[JC @ Salient]

I'm trying to upgrade to RoboHelp 2022. I am outputting a Word document and I map styles from my topic CSS file to Word styles. This worked fine in RoboHelp 2020. But in RoboHelp 2022, I no longer see the styles from my topic CSS file in the RoboHelp Style column, so I can't complete my mappings and the output document doesn't look like it should.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What patch version did you upgrade to? It should be Patch 3 as of Oct 2023.

[JC @ Salient]

It is 2022.3.0

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

If you flip to Code View, do the RH topics have a reference to the CSS whose styles you want to see?

[JC @ Salient]

Yes, it references the CSS file in the assets/css folder.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../assets/css/salcli.css" />

[Amebr]

The UI is terrible, but there is actually a scroll bar available in the popup menu. Took me 15 minutes just then to discover it...

[JC @ Salient]

I think I know what scrollbar you mean. My problem isn't selecting the styles in the word template though. My problem is that I can't see the styles in my topic css. This is all I see. I was expecting to see a lot more styles listed on the left so that I can map them.

[Peter Grainge]

RoboHelp 2022 introduced templates. I wonder if the issue is related to that. See https://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/rh_tour/rh2022/outputs/RH2022_Word_Templates.htm

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[JC @ Salient]

Yes, I thought it might have to do with that. I see that the template has a style sheet but it doesn't have the style sheet I have applied to my topics. It is just a general "layout" style sheet.

[Peter Grainge]

Is this setting selected? That would block the topic css styles.

Also you can edit the template CSS files.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[JC @ Salient]

The "Exclude all topic CSS files" setting is off but a template is selected. I'm going to play around with a simpler style sheet and new output preset to see if I can figure out what is going on. 

[JC @ Salient]

I can see the styles in my topic CSS only if:

• No template is selected  - This seems like a bug to me because I should be able to select a template. If I select a template--either a new one or one that has been migrated during the upgrade--the styles from my topic CSS are wiped out. This happens with my original topic CSS and also with an entirely new simple topic CSS (new topic, new TOC, new template, and new output preset). It doesn't appear to happen immediately because it doesn't refresh the styles until I reopen the output preset, but once I do, the styles are gone.
• Exclude all topic CSS files is off - this is expected

So it's like I can either map my styles or use a template. I need to be able to do both. Unless I'm misunderstanding how this is supposed to work.

[Peter Grainge]

No template is selected  - This seems like a bug to me because I should be able to select a template.

When you click that dropdown you should see at least Default and any templates you have created. Are you saying nothing is shown?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[JC @ Salient]

No, I see (Default), a new template "Test" that I created, and ones that were created by the upgrade. But if I select anything other than (Default), then it wipes out the mapping styles the next time I go back in to the output preset.

[alisonh1399482]

I was having the same problem (no styles to map) after upgrading to RoboHelp 2022. I saw your suggestion of selecting the Default Template instead of the template(s) automatically created when the project is upgraded, and my style mappings didn't disappear!. My Word output looks great now.

[Peter Grainge]

Templates in RoboHelp (rather than Word templates) only came in with 2022 so they could not be affected by 2020.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[JC @ Salient]

Some were created automatically by the upgrade. It must have used my presets and the master pages I had selected. I definitely see three templates that I did not create in RoboHelp 2022.

[Peter Grainge]

I just tested a simple 6 topic project with two folders and it help the styles using the Simple template and mapping H1 and P to using Word default.

Can you set up a similar test so that we can see if this is, as I suspect, project specific?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[JC @ Salient]

I was able to get the mappings to work in my project by adding any styles that I wanted to be mapped to the "content" stylesheet in the Template. I just had to match the name. I didn't need to apply formatting in the content.css. Then, when the template was selected (and I re-opened the preset) the styles from the content.css would be available for mapping. It was a little extra work, but I will be able to re-use the content.css in other projects. I'm not sure whether my topic CSS styles should have been also showing up when the template was selected, but I couldn't get it to work like that, so I will use this workaround.

I do think I was seeing some buggy behavior due to my "upgraded" templates, so I deleted them and started from scratch with a new template. Things seemed to work better after that (as long as my styles were in the content.css as I mentioned above).

Anyway, thanks for your help. 

[Amebr]

Hmm, having to duplicate all your style names seems really inconvenient. I think I would  log an issue with Adobe for a future update.

You can request features and report issues here: https://tracker.adobe.com/

Post the item number in the discussion so people can easily vote if they want the same functionality.

[JC @ Salient]

Yes, I think I will do that. I wasn't sure if it was a bug because I didn't know exactly how this feature is supposed to work. I didn't find thorough documentation on it. But given that there is a "Exclude all topic CSS files" setting and it's off, I would think it should be showing topic CSS styles.

[Peter Grainge]

With that setting off, the topic CSS definitions can be changed by on the other CSS files based on cascading rules.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Peter Grainge]

Have you tried testing a new project with just a couple of new test topics? The last time I looked at this area it worked.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[JC @ Salient]

No I didn't. I need my project to work, so I didn't spend time creating a new one.

[Peter Grainge]

Yes I realise you need to get the project working. My point was simply to see if the problem occurred in a new simple project with just a few topics. If it does, then it points to a general issue and I would be happy to test that to see if I can find a better solution. If it doesn't we know the issue is something specific to your project.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.