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January 29, 2010
Question

RoboHelp 8.02 inserts underscores at random into topic titles

  • January 29, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 3994 views
When processing linked FrameMaker 9 files, RH 8.02 seems to put underscores under some, but not all of the topic titles generated from the headings in a FrameMaker file.

This isn’t a huge problem, until you use the Search capability in your Help output. Since the Topic Title is what is displayed in the search results, the end product is in need of a little polish.

Further, for topics created from linked FrameMaker 9 files, the Topic Title is not editable from the Topic Properties. If it was, at least I could change the offending titles prior to final generation of output. (though the titles would revert on the next update of the FrameMaker source content)

Any solutions?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

April 15, 2010

But why do the search results show the file name on some topics? Why would any user want to see the file name in an HTML-based help system? All my topics have a title and that's what I want the search to show to the user.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 15, 2010

It's actually the topic title that's showing, and the topic title at random intervals chooses to put in underscores. Try deselecting the "Replace spaces with underscores" option for the filename (suggested by RJ Jacquez) though that will give you filenames with spaces (and that may simply be a different issue to work around)

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
April 15, 2010

Thanks, Matt. This is what is happening. I did find that clearing the "Replace spaces with underscores" option fixed this in the search. However, I'm still unclear as to whether or not having spaces in a file name will be a problem. It is my understanding that (as a best practice) you should not have spaces in HTML files. Do you have any information about this?

Thanks,

Chris

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 29, 2010

Matt

I'm not going to be able to help with the FM side of things but if you send me a document that has this problem I'll see if I can identify a quick fix in RH. Not hopeful but it cannot do any harm.

Shouldn't you be tucked up in bed? It's only morning here.


See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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prairiewriter
Known Participant
February 2, 2010

I would be interested to see the solution to this issue. I am experiencing the insertion of random underscores in my linked FrameMaker files as well.

prairiewriter
Known Participant
February 3, 2010

Regarding the Master Page assignment thread, Matt below made a great point in recommending customizing the SSL to ensure the proper assignment of Master Pages.

In other words, because we re-generate the HTML topics whenever you Update the linked FrameMaker documents, it's expected for these topics to also lose their originally assiged Master Page. However because of this, we added a new feature in RoboHelp 8, which allows you to automatically Apply either a CSS or a Master Page to All topics, which comes in handy for working with FrameMaker files.

Here's a short Adobe Captivate how-to on where this option is: http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/rh8applytoall/

Sincerely,

RJ Jacquez

on Twitter @rjacquez

Adobe Evangelist


RJ:

I have updated the “(do not) use underscores in file names” setting. I will let you know if that resolves the underscore issue. I was familiar with this setting, but the randomness of the underscores led me to believe that changing it would have little effect.

I know about applying a master page to all topics using the Generate dialog. However, I do not want to apply a master page to all my topics. For example, I want the Welcome page to appear differently. Also, I would imagine that there are other RoboHelp users who might be using multiple master pages. When linking to a FrameMaker document, RoboHelp does not support the use of multiple master pages or allow the removal of the master page from specific topics. Currently it’s “all or nothing”.

Thank you for taking the time to provide your suggestions.