I have a large RH 8 webhelp project that I am trying to upgrade to RH 11

[Guest]

I have been unable to import (I get an error that my project has "inconsistencies"), so I linked my files and am trying to recreate the project. Not bad so far, but none of my links work. How do I adjust the style between the two RH versions?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What’s going on? You fire RH 11 (all patched up, right?) and open the old RH8 project’s .xpj file (which you’ve backed, right?) and what happens?

[Peter Grainge]

Backed up the whole project I hope.

[Guest]

Yes, I am a newbie but not that bad, luckily. I am working from a backup. I have no xpj file yet; my original project is a Robohep 8 project that has an hpj that loads a large number of MS Word files. Sorry for asking such a fundamental question, but I am pretty lost here. From what I have read in the manual, I should be able to just import the hpj and it should work. That does not appear to be the case.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

So this must be a RH for Word project that you’re trying to open in RH11? You may have to have a look through Peter’s site (grainge.org) for help on that.

[Guest]

I guess it is Robohelp for Word. I just know it as Robohelp 8. Am I better off with an earlier version of Robohelp? The system we have is working, but the TOC is not displaying in IE 11.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Earlier versions won’t have any fixes for the browser security issues.

[Guest]

I need to have something working before I start worrying about security. Can anyone recommend a starting point? I am lost. Should I try to import the project, or start with a new project and import the Word files, or...? Endgame for me is a webhelp generation.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

If you try opening the .hpj file, does RH11 upgrade it for you? What messages do you get? Have you tried opening it up with the hhp file? (described here - http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/opening/opening_projects.htm)

[Guest]

Thanks for your help; I hope I do not seem ungrateful above. When I open my hpj file a dialog appears with two selection boxes: Select Output Folder and File Name and Choose Source Document(s). The problem at this point is that the Choose Source Documents box is empty and has no control to use to navigate to any directory. I have options of next and finish. I have two buttons, Next and Finish. If I click either I get an error saying that I must select source document(s).

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I’m still confused as to what sort of a project you have in RH8 – it must be an old WinHelp project if you don’t have an .xpj project file to open. What happens if you try opening the hhp file? Can you share the RH8 project? If so, send me a PM & I can give you a Dropbox site you could put a copy in.

[Guest]

I am somewhat confused by the terminology. I suspect that it is Winhelp (at least it has an HPJ file) from which I generate webhelp as the primary layout. In my RH* install, there are actually two executables: Robo help for word and robohelp html. I use the former.

I have gotten past some earlier issues and now get the import wizard to recognize my files, but is seems fail the second I click finish at the end of the wizard run. I cannot send you all of the project, but I could send you a subset, partly because it is so large and partly because of sensitive material. Would that be enough to go on or a waste of your time?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I wouldn’t bother then. Have a look at this post and some of the links in it - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1704378 - you might be facing something like this. Worst case scenario(s) – you reverse engineer your project; or, you create a brand new RH11 project and reimport the Word contents again.

[Guest]

I am not opposed to recreating the project by importing all of the Word files; that does not seem too severe. However manually fixing every hyperlink is too severe.  While looking at the page on Peter's website I see a possible solution, but have another question. It suggests that I edit the word documents to use the same styles as in the css file. How do I view the styles in the css file? Can I create a new css file based on styles I have from one of my Word files?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Just so we catch everyone up on what's been going on off-line: Mark has sent me one of his smaller projects that I was able to open in RH11 by selecting the .hpj file. It's clearly a WinHelp file project and was able to be opened (after a long time of "Not Responding" messages) with only 1 reported broken link, but with almost every topic with a big chunk of font names stuck at the top - I suspect some artefact of the opening process did that. I suggested that he have a look at Peter's site (this location - Importing Using RoboHelp 9, 10 and 11) because I've got zippo experience in importing or linking to Word docs.

I think the question about matching the styles can be done by setting up the same styles in RH first (I think that they get saved in some default css file in a new project), that you can then use during the Word import process to match up Word styles and RH styles.

[Guest]

Thanks Jeff. That is a very good summary of the progress so far. Your final point regarding style matching is also on the mark, and where I intend to go next. I am familiar with Word but not RH, so at this point I am looking into the process of "setting up the same styles in RH." My hope is that once I do that I can import the Word files more productively.