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A
Anonymous
June 16, 2010
Question

Table contained in a topic causes slow response when working with source

  • June 16, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 625 views

I am using RoboHelp V8.0.2 (I have applied the two fixes available from the Adobe product site).

Here is my issue:

I am documenting a product that has over 1,500 metrics.

I am trying to make a list of 1,077 metrics in one topic (all the metrics are of the same "type" so they are grouped together).

The table presenting these metrics has two columns, a Field Name column and a Description column.

There is not a lot of text within the table - most of the explanations and calculations are defined outside the table.

When I have more than about 400 table rows, the response time working with the topic in source is just horrible.

It took 3 minutes to open the topic in source, another 3 minutes to move the table over .425in from margin.

When I try to close the project, it gets hung up.

Has anyone else run into a problem working with tables within a topic?

I had a similar response time issue with V8.0.0 in general when I first installed it.

Once I installed the two fixes, that problem was (for the most part) eliminated.

I think the second fix specifically addressed response time issues when working in source.

I am going to try this on one of my other writer's machine to see if it is the age of my computer.

My computer setup is:

Dell Precision work station with an Intel Xeon 2.40GHZ processor and 2MB of RAM.

I am using Windows XP Professional 5.1.26 Service Pack 3.0.

I have a 110 GB hard drive with 18 GB available.

As always - thanks for any insight or information.

Michael F Weart

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

RoboColum_n_
RoboColum_n_
Legend
June 17, 2010

Hi Michael.

Interestingly the maximum number of rows you can use when you create a table via the Table > Insert > Table menu item is 100. That said, I've just created a 500 row table and whilst it is slower than a smaller table it is OK. I am also using RH 8.0.2 but on a higher spec PC.


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A
Anonymous
June 17, 2010

A few new observations:

(1) I did not realize the Insert Table option only allows for 100 rows maximum

(2) I create the data for the table in Excel, copy and paste into Word (I keep dual source - one in Word and one in RoboHelp) and then import into the RoboHelp project

I opened this project on my brand new laptop at home (Intel Duo 2 processor with 4MB memory) and it takes approx 45 seconds to open the topic with the big table. It seems it might be either (1) the amount of memory on my PC and/or (2) the processor. I will have to see if I can bump the memory up to 4MB and then try this again.

If anyone else has some input, send it my way.

Thanks again --

Michael F Weart

Willam van Weelden
Willam van Weelden
Inspiring
June 18, 2010

Hi,

A table with that many rows is probably not very user friendly... Also, the topic itself becomes very large, users will have to download the entire topic. The Excel sheet itself is probably more useful, as you can sort, search and filter it.

Greet,

Willam

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