printing a project with about 500 pages

[Guest]

Hello,

the company I'm working for is currently discussing using robohelp for the technical documentation. So now I'm trying to find out, if robohelp really suits our needs or not. Currently I'm testing robohelp 9 on a windows xp system with word 2010.

In the documentation for robohelp it says, that one should not print documents with more than 100 pages. So I tried to print separate documents, but couldn't generate a suitable TOC - the result was simply a document, stating, that a TOC couldn't be generated, which won't be a acceptable output. My question is: how can I generate a TOC though printing several small chapters of the document?

Or is it possible to print a project with about 500 pages without using those single documents?

(Up till now, it was no problem for me, to generate a suitable printing documentation, but I'm not sure, if this will still work, when the project is complete and then contains about 500 pages.)

[Peter Grainge]

I regularly generate documents of more than 100 pages as do many others. Could you point me to the help topic that says there is a limit?

Are you trying this method just because of what the help says about that limit? If so, revert to your old method and see if you hit any problems. I doubt you will.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Hello,

thank you very much for your fast answer!

Well here is the link to the topic in which it says, that one ought not generate documents over 100 pages: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp/robohtml/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59c2a0-7efa.html

I'm not sure if I understood the second part of your answer.... I tried that method - the printing of individual documents - because of the "limitation". Yet I don't have any problems generating the whole document, because the document currently contains onle about 30 pages. But later the document will contain about 500 pages.

As the company I'm working for has not yet bought Robohelp, it is my task to make sure, the whole thing will work, before they buy it.

[Guest]

Hi Gr33bo!

I regularly generate printable documents of around 500 pages and rarely encounter problems.

I have a massive project that I need to provide in printable format. I generate three Word docs from it (each over 500 pages) and supply them as Parts 1, 2 and 3.

When each Word file has been generated, I copy the content into a Word template of my own, so that it contains all the fonts, styles, logos, tocs and index that I need for our company style and then PDF the files.

If documents are a lot larger than 500 - 600 pages, it can take considerable time to generate them from Robohelp.

Hope that helps.

Feebeegeebee

[Peter Grainge]

I've asked that the limit be investigated but for now all I can do is confirm I have no trouble with 200/300 page docs and Feebeegeebee is producing even larger docs. I have done so in the past and the only problem was that inevitably it took a bit longer.

Try repeating your topics in the print layout to produce a large document. A topic can be included more than once.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Well I tried to generate a large document just the way you suggested and it worked quite well. I am not sure, wether it will work that well, when there are more pictures and links in it, but considering Feebeegeebee's experiences with those large documents, I guess it is very likely that it will work with my document as well!

Thank you very much!

[Guest]

If your project is likely to become extremely large, you can simply output to more than one Word file.

When you click on Printed Documentation in the Single Source Layouts pod and go to the Printed Documents Content page of the dialog you can choose which topics to include as chapters in your document. I just run through this process 3 times, choosing the relevant topics for each output.

These docs are then supplied as Parts 1, 2 and 3.

As Peter said, the larger the document, the longer it takes to generate, especially if your PC/laptop does not have a massive amount of memory.

Word can also be a bit flaky when dealing with really massive files (repeatedly repaginating or just hanging), so that's another reason to maybe split out extremely large projects into multiple documents.

Just for reference, I checked my largest project to see the size of the files that I output.

The largest number of pages in a single Word file is 862, and it doesn't take too long to generate.

The largest file size I generate is 6.8MB and contains 784 pages (with lots of graphics) and that also only takes a few minutes to generate.

Regards,

Feebeegeebee

[Guest]

Hi Feebeegeebee,

thanks a lot for your answer!

Well, I tried to generate individual documents by using the flag "individual documents" in the printing config... but then the TOC is printed separately and therefore doesn't contain anything at all...

If you're generating those separate documents, then how do you get a suitable TOC? (Especially if you don't intend to make different books and therefore the pages should be numbered as if they would all belong to the same document). And what about the links... do they still work if one part of it is generated in a different document?

Regards

Gr33bo

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

I'm stymied as to why you would use RoboHelp to create something intended to be printed, then be concerned whether the hyperlinks will work. I mean, RoboHelp is all about creating content for use on-line. Word is sort of an afterthought.

However, there is an option that allows you to retain hyperlinks when you create Word output.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

Hello,

well we got customers who prefer a printed document, others prefer the online-help and others want to get a PDF, they can read at their PC... so I have to cope with those different kinds of output. And therefore I need to make sure that the links for a "printed" document will work

Thanks for your advice!

Regards

Gr33bo

[Guest]

Hi Gr33bo,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

I have a corporate Word template already set up for my printable docs, with toc format already created.

When I generate the printable docs in RoboHelp, I select Generate a single document and generate 3 three times, each time selecting the sections I want in each. I drop the content from each of these files into my template update the TOC and then PDF.

As for links working, provided you have a full version of PDF Writer, they will work from the toc and within each document (but not between docs).
But as Captiv8er says, the main object of a printable version is to print it. For full links the HTML is already there.

Good luck!

Fi

[Guest]

Thank you very much! I will try to generate my document the same way you described... hope I will get as good results!

Have a nice weekend!

Gr33bo

[Guest]

Thank you very much for your answer. I guess, if you are able to generate those large documents, it is not very unlikely that I will be able to do so as well