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Character Limit to Subtopic Bookmarks

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Hello, I am using RoboHelp 2017. I have noticed that there is a character limit to the bookmarks that we are using for subtopic navigation. This is primarily on linked Word Documents; the Table of Contents Headers we use in the word documents do not display fully in RoboHelp and are thus shortened when we publish our site.

DOes anyone know how to correct this?

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Peter GraingeCorrect answer

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I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I created a Word document with bookmarks. I found that Word would not let me add any bookmark with numbers in it so I am curious as to how you managed that?

The next thing I found was that on linking a document to a project, unless the document has a TOC the bookmarks don't get imported. Is that your experience?

Then I linked and found that the bookmarks in Word had been renamed to the text of the heading rather than what I had entered.

I then went back to the document and changed the headings so that they had forty, thirty and twenty characters.

On updating the document I then got this in RoboHelp. The numbers are simply because each heading have the text I used. As you say, it gets clipped on linking. The logic of my headings was that "bookmarked" and "_ookmarked" both contain ten characters so I hoped to glean some information from that.

Finally I went back to the document and removed the underscores replacing them with B.

That confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt the limit is 25, albeit RoboHelp adds a number if a duplicate gets created and a further clipping occurs with underscores.

There is no setting I can find that allows you to change that number and so far I haven't found any way of changing how this works, other than the obvious limiting the headings in Word to 25 characters.

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Danielle5C5DAuthor

Participating Frequently

Some of our linked Word documents have numbers in our project but most do not. For the ones that have numbers we use a multilevel list as part of the Header1 format and use the Word TOC to have the bookmarks generate inside of RH.

Correct regarding the TOC, we always have a TOC when linking documents into RH otherwise the bookmarks are not generated in RH.

Thank you for testing this and confirming the 25 character limit, that is unfortunate. I appreciate the help

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Community Expert

I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I created a Word document with bookmarks. I found that Word would not let me add any bookmark with numbers in it so I am curious as to how you managed that?

The next thing I found was that on linking a document to a project, unless the document has a TOC the bookmarks don't get imported. Is that your experience?

Then I linked and found that the bookmarks in Word had been renamed to the text of the heading rather than what I had entered.

I then went back to the document and changed the headings so that they had forty, thirty and twenty characters.

On updating the document I then got this in RoboHelp. The numbers are simply because each heading have the text I used. As you say, it gets clipped on linking. The logic of my headings was that "bookmarked" and "_ookmarked" both contain ten characters so I hoped to glean some information from that.

Finally I went back to the document and removed the underscores replacing them with B.

That confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt the limit is 25, albeit RoboHelp adds a number if a duplicate gets created and a further clipping occurs with underscores.

There is no setting I can find that allows you to change that number and so far I haven't found any way of changing how this works, other than the obvious limiting the headings in Word to 25 characters.

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Community Expert

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I'm not sure why the bookmarks are being displayed in the toc rather than the headings. Could you create a test project and try linking a single document to see what happens when the table of contents is created as part of the linking process?

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Danielle5C5DAuthor

Participating Frequently

I reviewed several of our Word documents and don't seem to see ay inconsistencies or issues with how everything is displaying in there. I have found other bookmarks that are including 4 and even 5 word phrases. I counted several of them and it looks like 25 is the max characters it will display; the last full word that falls under 25 characters is what is populating.

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Community Expert

Community Expert

A bit more information now that I am at a machine with Classic on it...

There doesn't seem to be a limit on the number of characters when you create a bookmark in RoboHelp.

I notice that Scope and Coverage has more characters than others that are getting clipped so the number doesn't seem to be the issue.

The issue seems to be related to links with more than two words rather than the number of characters. Take a look at those bookmarks in Word. What do they read there?

I suggested renaming them in RoboHelp but thinking some more, I think that might get trashed when you update the linked document. Test it.

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Danielle5C5DAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you, I can see where you can rename it in the TOC but these documents are updated weekly. Is there a more permanent fix where whenever they are updated it will automatically populate the correct TOC or will it have to be edited every time?

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Community Expert

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So you are displaying the bookmarks in the TOC, that's the bit of information needed.

I'm not at a RoboHelp machine right now but you should be able to edit the TOC even though the underlying bookmark cannot be changed.

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Community Expert

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I don't think you can change it where you have shown. What I'm trying to ascertain is how this affects end users.

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Danielle5C5DAuthor

Participating Frequently

Our concern is the readability for our users. In addition, since the whole header doesn't display, on some topics it adds a 1, 2, 3, etc. automatically at the end of the header becuase it assumes the titles are the same instead of recognizing they are different longer titles.

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Community Expert

Community Expert

It would help if you use the camera icon and add a screenshot that shows what is not appearing the way you want it.

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Danielle5C5DAuthor

Participating Frequently

We want the entire 6.9 header to appear but it is only pulling a certain number of characters instead of the entire header.

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Community Expert

Community Expert

They look like bookmarks automatically created during import, rather than ones manually inserted into the Word document. At least I can't seem to manually create a bookmark in Word that starts with a number.

The links should all work correctly in your output.

Can you provide more details about the problem you're encountering?

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Danielle5C5DAuthor

Participating Frequently

We do not use the import feature to load Word documents into RoboHelp, we us Link to bring in Word documents into our RoboHelp project. The RH Bookmarks generate from the Table of contents in the Word document. The wording displays correctly in the Word document 's TOC and should be as shown on the right side column of the screenshot (minus the numbers). However, what displays in RH and what is displaying in our site is an abbreviated version (what displays on the left side column - without numbers). The numbers aren't important and actually don't show in the project or in output.

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