RoboHelp Cannot Open Word

[AnitaSt____]

I have RoboHelp7 on my network-connected computer. It worked fine last work, but then I shut the computer down over the weekend. Now, whenever I try to open RoboHelp, I get a "serious error" on the Word side, and the message "RoboHelp is unable to open Microsoft Word".

I have tried EVERYTHING to fix this. I have moved the robohelp.dot file around, moved .wll files, deleted them, etc and nothing seems to work. I have finally resorted to uninstalling RoboHelp, but now notice that there are still RoboHelp7 files anf folders (related to the program, not my working files) stashed around in various. Why do they not get uninstalled? Is this why when I reinstall the program it is still screwed up? Can I delete these?

Any ideas on how I can get RoboHelp to remember it's settings even if I turn the computer off? I'd hate to think that every time my computer turns off I will have to spend a week trying to get RoboHelp to work.

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi AnitaSt**** and welcome to the RH community.

Can you tell us what "network connected computer" is? The reason is that RH should never be installed on a network or your source files placed on a network. If you do you are asking for serious problems. If however you have RH installed on a local drive and all your project files are also on local drives - you just happen to have a network drive accessible from your computer - than ignore this response.

As far as completely uninstalling RH, you may want to refer to the knowledge base article linked here.

[AnitaSt____]

Hi :)

Robohelp is installed onto my computer, but my computer is connected to a network rather than just a standalone (I'm not sure this makes a difference).

My project that I was working is stored in a folder on one of the network drives though.

The problem is that now I can't even create a "new" project (saved to my computer) , as RoboHelp absolutely refuses to be able to work with Word (in fact, I had to repair Word in order to even be able to use it without RoboHelp).

I will read the article you posted, thank. Any ideas on this other nonsense?

[RoboColum_n_]

Working on a computer connected to a network in the way you describe makes absolutely no difference. Having your project on a network though is another matter. RH uses a Access database which are prone to all sorts of problems when they are on a network drive. Be careful of locating projects in your My Documents or Desktop also as your IT folks may have these set-up so they are also located on a network. Best to create a folder on your C: drive (e.g. C:\RHSource).

As far as getting RH to open a project, it sounds like the uninstall/reinstall has not works correctly. Did you follow the article and remove any bogus registry settings? Also did you install with full admin rights? You also need to install RH after Word so if you've had to repair Word this may also be an issue.

Anyway

[AnitaSt____]

I couldn't find any of the registry settings listed in that article, however I did find:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\RoboHelp
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\RoboHTML
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Adobe\RoboHelp
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Adobe\RoboHTML
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Adobe\RoboSourceControl

Should I delete those?

Word is on my computer and functioning properly. I'm not sure how to install with full admin rights?

[Peter Grainge]

"there are still RoboHelp7 files and folders (related to the program, not my working files)"

- Probably because you moved them. The uninstall routine expect them to be in a certain location.

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Robohelp is installed onto my computer, but my computer is connected to a network rather than just a standalone (I'm not sure this makes a difference).

- As Colum said, that makes no difference.

My project that I was working is stored in a folder on one of the network drives though.

- Sorry but have to disagree here Colum. This is a RH for Word project so there is no CPD file. To the best of my knowledge having the Word document on a network drive is OK. However, if you open the project when not connected to the network, then RH will not be able to find the linked document. I don't think that will give the error you are seeing.

The problem is that now I can't even create a "new" project (saved to my computer) , as RoboHelp absolutely refuses to be able to work with Word (in fact, I had to repair Word in order to even be able to use it without RoboHelp).

- If you repair Word, that is close to being a reinstall and the rule is that RH must be installed after Word. So (re)install Word and you have to uninstall and reinstall RH.

****************************************

Word is on my computer and functioning properly. I'm not sure how to install with full admin rights?

- If you don't understand that bit, then I suggest you should not be fiddling with the registry. Also I would not advise anyone to make registry changes other than those advised by Adobe unless they have sufficient knowledge of the registry themselves. To get local admin rights, you need to talk to your IT people. With RH7, they are only needed for installation.

****************************************

I suggest you get IT to uninstall and reinstall RH using a logon with local admin rights and see how that goes.

[AnitaSt____]

I am trying to uninstall RH - which was why I questioned why things were still there after I uninstalled it via the control panel. As far as it not finding them because I moved them, the only things I copied to other locations were the .dot and .wll files, as RH seems unable to figure out where they are on it's own - not just true on my computer, but others as well. The files that remained were the ones mentioned on the link that Colum posted, so that seems to be a common feature.

I have been in contact with my IT group, who told me to search here for answers since they didn't know why it wasn't working. It isn't a common program here, so they don't know much about it.

My only question is if the registry files I mentioned should be removed as part of the complete uninstall. I will have IT remove them if they are supposed to be, but I don't want to reinstall Robohelp until I am fairly certain all remaining pieces are removed, or it probably still won't work.

[Peter Grainge]

I thought you meant files over and above what were listed there.

On the registry, see previous answer. All I am saying there is that if you are not certain what to remove, you should stick with just removing what Adobe say in that article. If your IT people indicate that these are items that can be safely removed, then go ahead. My gut feel is it is OK to remove them but I cannot recommend registry changes to anyone else unless Adobe endorse them.

My belief is that something went wrong with the install, perhaps not having the required rights attached to your logon when installing, you then hit the problem with Word and ran the Word repair. That would have messed up a good install, never mind one that went wrong. So I think that if you follow the article and then install with the correct rights, it will all work OK.

Speak to your IT people and see how they feel about creating a restore point and trashing those entries so you have a complete uninstall. If in doubt, leave them. Then reinstall with the correct rights.

You can install RH7 using your logon as long as that has local admin rights attached or IT can install it using one of their logons.

See http://www.adobe.com/devnet/robohelp and go to the Before You Install article. There's also an article about installing RH on my site.

Whilst I don't think those entries will affect things one way or the other, only Adobe or someone with expert registry knowledge can be categoric about it.

[AnitaSt____]

I think virus software may also have something to do with the install problem as well. I will have them turn it off before reinstalling.

Thanks for your help 🙂

[Peter Grainge]

That is quite possible and there are a numbe of other things in an article on the Adobe site. However, I didn't want to direct you to those just yet.

[AnitaSt____]

Well I finally got this working again!

I had to uninstall RoboHelp, then remove the extra files as listed in the link that Colum posted. From there, I deleted every entry in the registry that even contained "robo". After that, I checked all of the template folders for Word and Microsoft and deleted any leftover RoboHelp .dot files, then in the Word templates folder, I had to rename my normal.dot template to normalbak.dot (apparently something in RoboHelp changed the file when it was last opened). FINALLY when I reinstalled RoboHelp (after turning off the virus scan software, it WORKED.

I nearly wept with joy :-)

[Guest]

Anita, this problem may reappear. I just went through the same thing & believe it to have been caused by changes made to the robohelp.dot template because the "Automatically update styles" check box is selected every time you reopen your project.

I think this makes unpredictable changes to the template. Make sure you back up your current (working) version of robohelp.dot so that if this happens again, you can replace the version in your templates folder.

The original document owner was able to open the document and attach the Normal template. Then I could open it, and after I cleaned various versions of robohelp.dot (robohelp1.dot??) out of my templates folder, I reattached robohelp.dot and everything worked.

[AnitaSt____]

It has indeed happened again.

RoboHelp 7 has been NOTHING but trouble since I installed it. What sort of program regularly changes it's own setting so as to make itself unusable to the point where you spend at least half a day uninstalling and reinstalling things??!!

[mahithab]

Hi,

I have a similar problem. I have RH 5 installed in my system. I have a RH for word project that I have to update and the project won't let me add a topic. When I try to add a topic, the system hangs for a while and then I recieve the message "Robohelp Explorer is unable to open Microsoft Word" even when Word is open. Having tussled with this for a while, I created a new project and imported all the word files into the new project.

Now I'm able to add topics. But the context-sensitive help does not work when linked to the application. I receive the 129 error. I tried to correct the 129 error but nothing seems to work.

Can someone help?

Thanks,

Mahitha

[Peter Grainge]

Welcome to the forum Mahitha

You don't say what version of Word you are using but let's assume it is a compatible version of the new project would also have problems.

First take a look at the Print Issues topic on my site. It is related to RH HTML but the issues there could be relevant.

My best guess is that Word has been updated, either the version or a major patch, and that unintalling and reinstalling RH will fix it.