Robohelp 2022 - Imported Word style all of a sudden shows differently in the style list in Robohelp

[JenniR_12]

I just had our IT dept install the latest Robohelp update on my machine.   I'm now running

Robohelp 2022 4.179.  As I was working today, I noticed that at least 2 of my styles that were imported from a Word document several months ago, now look like they might be corrupt.  In the styles list in RH, the style is no longer showing the name of the style as it always has, but now it shows up in the list as some crazy bizarre font with symbols and letters.  The style was originally named Bullets - ChangeLink and now it crazy.  I guess I should say that it hasn't affected my documents asf ar as I know........ My pages where these styles were used, seem to still be formatted corretly.  It's the name and the way it's showing up in the style list that bothers me.  I believe something is or has happened and I'm worried that if I just ignore, it could be problematic down the road.  Additionally, noone is going to know what these style do and we use them quite a bit.  Has anyone seen this before and if so, any suggestions on what I need to do?  I don't know that the update caused this, but the timing sure indicates that something happened when the update was installed.  Prior to the update, the

styles looked correct in the list.  The style names SHOULD read Bullets - ChangeLink and Bullets - ChangeLink No List.  

Prior to installing the RH update, these 2 styles were named Bullets - Change Link and Bullets - ChangeLink NO List..

[Peter Grainge]

1. Look at the source code for the CSS. 
2. If you import the CSS into a new project, does it show correctly there?
3. Have you closed and reopened the project?

Things like this don't happen suddenly without some reason. Have you made other changes to the CSS?

________________________________________________________

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

[JenniR_12]

Hi Peter.  I honestly haven't been in the project for several weeks other than to simply open it up and check something or compare to our current user guide and I've added some Condition Tags.  I haven't done anything I can think of as it relates to the the content or creating or even editing.  Let me try your suggestions and I will open up my back up and see what it looks like.  I was afraid this wasn't something that someone would have a quick fix for.  I'll get right back to you.  Thanks for suggestions.

[JenniR_12]

It imports in all jacked up.  It's jacked up on my backup.  I've defintiely closed and reopened the project .  I see a couple more styles in the list that were styles that I imported in from Word to Robohelp that have worked all along  that are doing the same thing - just symbols and strange font.  The CSS source code looks fine, though.  Also, if I highlight some text on my page and then select one of the jacked up styles from the style list, it formats the content correctly.  I'm stumped.  I've deleted the styles from the CSS and verified hat they are no longer in the style list in RH and then reimported a word document that contains the style that I am trying to put back in RH correctly, and the style imports jacked up.  It literally comes into RH jacked up.  Here is the code taken diectly from the CSS:

p.Bullets-ChangeLink {
margin-left: 0.50in;
margin-right: 0.50in;
text-indent: 0;
margin-top: 14pt;
line-height: 1.50;
margin-bottom: 14pt;
font-family: 'Arial', 'sans-serif';
font-size: 14pt;
color: #FF660F;
text-decoration: underline;
font-weight: bold;
counter-reset: Numbering222;
--autonumber: autonumber;
}
p.Bullets-ChangeLink:before {
content: "•";
font-family: Symbol;
display: inline-flex;
width: 0.25in;
margin-left: 0.25in;
overflow: hidden;
position: absolute;
left: 0;
text-align: right;
}

[JenniR_12]

One last thing I tried.  Brand new RH project.  Bramd new Word file that I typed 2 senteneces on and then created a style similar to what I'm needing and then imported that Word file into RH and the style name is all crazy.  It's like anything I create from hear on out, weather my existing project or a new project, is going to have style names that are messed up.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What happens if you create a new RH project, create RH Styles that match the Word ones, then try importing a Word doc with those same identically named styles in.

[Peter Grainge]

Why are you not creating the style in RoboHelp's CSS editor? Importing lists from Word is the path to insanity.

________________________________________________________

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

[JenniR_12]

Hi Peter and Jeff:  I'm probably going to have to try to set some of these styles up in RH as both of you are suggesting.   The short answer to why am I not just using RH styles to create the styles is becasue I know exactly what I'm doing in Word with creating styles (especially with multilevel lists and numbered lists, etc). 

The longer answer is when I first started here and prior to me ever knowing anything about RH, they asked me to go in and set up several styles in Word (50 styles), which I did.  It took several weeks for me to get everyting working exactly the way they neeed to work (miind you, I really didn't know what they were going to be doing with the styles, only that I was to build them and then show the rest of the dept how to access and use them.  After that was done, I spent the next 3 LOOOOOOONG boring months copying pages from an existing online user manul and pasting those pages into Word and formatting those pages with the styles I had just created .  I was told that once this was done, we would then be able to import those same formatted Word files into Robohelp using Robhohelp's super slick "Import Word file" feature and "wala"  we would have our new and improved and refreshed User Guide ready to roll out. 

Imagine my surprise when I started to understand that it's not even close to being a "smooth" process.  Each agonizing page that I import comes with it's own little special problems and nightmares.  We have a ton of man hours involved in the prepping of the styles and pages in Word and so I'm just caught in limbo.  Part of me says just scrap all of that work and come up with a new plan and the other half says just keep muddling through and try to find a streamlined process for quickly getting all of these pages into Robhohelp and formatted correctly bc while it's not a great plan, it's the only one I have at the moment.   When my team explained to me how to do this in Robohelp, I remember thinking......that's pretty cool.  I figured that since there is in fact an Import Word feature in Robohelp, that it would be a great way to get our pages into the program.  Some of the documents are coming in just fine, but most of them need another hour or 2 to reformat them in Robohelp.  I've tried to set up styles inside of Robohlep and for the simple easy styles, it works fine (but then, the simple easy styles seem to import into Robohelp great and work great.  It's the more complex styles with word wrapping and indents and levels, etc that have been an absolute nightmare.  And while I have just accepted that I'm just going to have to fix these on a page by page basis,  I'm not sure what to do about the style names changing to this weird font which reaks of corruption somewhere to me.  I feel like the update is a factor in this because these styles were fine prior to installing the upate.  Is there any way to uninstall the updae and go back?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

"...copying pages from an existing online user manul and pasting those pages into Word..." - if they were going to maintained in RH going forward, why wouldn't you just go straight from the source to RH??? Then you could have spent your time applying styles to the text within RH only.

[Peter Grainge]

Creating styles in Word for import into RoboHelp is akin to writing something in French and expecting a translation tool to convert it to perfect English., especially with lists. As I think I have mentioned before, in HTML lists are something specific, in Word they are actually just paragraphs with numbers or bullets. In all of RoboHelp's history, the conversion has been an issue, especially when non standard Word indents are involved. Whoever told you things were superslick hadn't tried anything complex. 

As to reverting, I doubt the upgrade is the issue. I also doubt reverting would fix the problem. It would definitely wreck any variables with no way to fix the damage.

Do you have a back up of the CSS in a project that has not been upgraded? If you do, open the CSS in a text editor and compare it with the source view of the broken CSS.

Let us know how you get on. 

________________________________________________________

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

[JenniR_12]

I actually think I do have a backup project that hasn't been updated yet sitting on my machine somewhere.  I'll try your suggestion and I will let you know.  

And YES, you did educate me, Peter, on the ups and downs and ins and outs of importing Word styles and documents with lists into Robohelp.  And, you are also correct in that the those who were counting on me to make this happpen just hadn't done any of this and didn't know any better.  But it's all good.  I'm makeing progress and figuring things out as I go.  It can be frustrating at times, for sure, but I know the deal now and so I'm just working through things as they come up.  

Let me go ahead and look at the CSS on a backup that I haven't updated yet and see what happens.  That will give more insight into whether or not the update triggered something or if it was this way prior to the update!!

[Peter Grainge]

When you find a copy that you believe is good, copy it. Try importing the copy into a project and see if the update breaks it.

________________________________________________________

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

[JenniR_12]

I've been out for a few days and am just picking back up with this issue.  I did find a project with a copy of my CSS that hadn't been updated yet.  I opened this in Notepad and then in Robohelp I went to Source view on my CSS from my current project that is now showing in a weird way in the style list.  The code looks the same in both. 

As a reminder, see screenshot below to see what the problem is.   That Orange text is the style and the style name should be Bullets - ChangeLink.  What I would like to do ultimately, is open this other project that hasn't been upgraded yet that uses this same CSS and see if it's also showing incorrectly.  How can I do that?   How can I open a project that hasn't been updated so I can take a look at what it looked like prior to the update?  From what I can tell, my only options when I try to open a RH project now are to accept the update or hit cancel which doesn't open the project.  I need to see what it was doing prior to the update.  Thanks in advance.

[Peter Grainge]

You can't open a project without it upgrading unless you have a machine you can install the old version on. 

Name the good version and the bad version so that it is clear which is which. Send me both and I will look tomorrow. Attach to an email. 

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

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

This is a known issue that will be fixed in Update 5. If you open the CSS in the CSS editor, the style names will appear correctly. It is only in the right toolbar styles pod that the names are junk. If you hover over the style name, the correct name appears and will work.

It is a display issue only.

________________________________________________________

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

[JenniR_12]

Thanks, Peter. I thought it was probably update related just based off of the timing.  I appreciate your help and feeedback.