unwanted cellspacing in Word tables

Report · Jan 03, 2014

Using Robohelp 10 on win 7 pc

I am having the strangest table problem when i publish to docx from robohelp project.

All the tables in word doc have 2px of cellspacing which makes them look like cubbyhole shelving (not what i want).

I hope someone in the forum will take up the challenge to help me out.

Here's what i know:

using the same style sheet (.css) and word template (.dot) files that i have used in many projects that do not have this problem.
started a new RH project and imported a framemaker project.
Used the RH "clear formatting" option for each topic to remove framemaker conversion garbage formatting.
Used the RH "clear formatting" option for each table to remove garbage table formatting
Checked the html of each table to make sure it was cleanly tagged table
Selected each table and used "table style" (and checked the clean up box) to add my own table css style (AM1) to each table
table heading looks like this: <table class="AM1" cellspacing="0">
In the print documentation wizard, i select the word template and assigned the "AM1" to the desired word template table style

After i publish to word and open the doc, all the tables have cubbyhole shelving look. By selecting the table and choosing "table properties" i see that something has set the cellspacing to "2px"

With my cursor in the table, when i view the table "design" toolbar, i see that the correct table style is highlighted. Now, if i click the table style to reapply it, cellspacing goes away (sets to "0") and the table looks correct.

What could be causing this cellspacing problem when i publish to word from this project? there must be a problem in my robohelp project.

Report · Jan 03, 2014

I continued troubleshooting after posting this request and found the issue. I discovered a couple of correctly formatted tables in my Word doc and after careful comparision it occurred to me that the topics with the correct tables were in topics i created from scratch (not imported from framemaker)

The tables are formatted exactly alike so i took a look header info <head> and saw the only difference were a few meta <meta> entries.

After deleting the following meta info, the problem was fixed in that topic.

<meta name="Originator" content="ImportMif" />

Using find/replace, i removed the meta entry from all the topics. All the tables were fixed.

Anyone know why this meta entry could have created the cellspacing issue?

Conclusion: importing framemaker files into robohelp may cause untold hours of painful troubleshooting.

Report · Jan 04, 2014

I have seen that tag cause problems with topics imported from Word, albeit different from what you describe.

Please follow this link and report it as a bug.

http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 04, 2014

I have moved this thread. Your project must be a RoboHelp HTML project if it has meta tags and you posted in the RoboHelp for Word forum, which is for users of that app.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 06, 2014

I thought the Word forum was for issues related to publishing to Word from RH. Didn't even know there was a robohelp for word product.

Report · Jan 06, 2014

I entered the bug as you suggested