No Styles Imported from FrameMaker

Report · Feb 17, 2021

Hi there. First, I'll admit that I haven't used Robohelp since before the beginning of this century. So I'm trying to stay closely tied to the user guide as I proceed.

Robohelp 2020.3.32, FrameMaker 16.0.1.817, Windows 10 system

I created my Robohelp project and imported a FrameMaker file, using the corresponding .css file that was used for the FM file from an earlier version of the help system. In FrameMaker Import Settings, I specified the styles for starting a new topic, and my FM paragraph and character styles appear in their respective tabs - the FrameMaker Style column lists my styles, and the In RoboHelp column says "Import Style" for each.

After a supposedly successful import, the Styles tab under Properties shows "(none)" for each of the style types (paragraph, character, hyperlink, etc.). I expected the styles from FrameMaker to appear here.

What am I doing wrong?

Report · Feb 17, 2021

Hmm, if you didn't specify the RH style to map to, you should have ended up with a bunch of "FM_" styles coming over. Have you had a look inside the RH topics that came over to see what they think they are mapped to?

Report · Feb 17, 2021

Thank you, Jeff. The RH topics seem to sort of approach the FM styles, in that Note paragraphs still start with "NOTE:", although they've lost the hanging outdent. Bulleted lists are recognizable as such, although the bullet - a Wingding lowercase letter "l" in FM - is in whatever font the rest of the text is in. Chapter titles and headings look identical to Body text, but their numbering is maintained.

It pretty much looks like everything is assigned to Body text. Even the tables, which use a smaller point size in FM.

I'm continuing to try things and discovered that, after the FM files are imported, I can go to Properties > Topic and manually apply the same stylesheet I applied during the import. This at least allows the FM styles to appear in the styles lists. Then I can manually assign the styles to the paragraphs and characters. But shouldn't this mostly be automatic?

Report · Feb 17, 2021

What's it look like in the HTML code view of the RH topic? That's where I'd expect to see the "FM_xxx" styles show up.

Report · Feb 17, 2021

Hi, Jeff. It's also been a long time since I've had to deal with raw HTML. Here are the firs few lines of the code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head></head>
<body dir="ltr">

<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" lang="en" />

<title></title>
<link href="../rhstylemapping.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="01_introduction.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="../editstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<a id="FM_HTML_PAGE_TOP_A" name="FM_HTML_PAGE_TOP_A"></a>
<div class="FLOW_A" dir="ltr">
<a id="6_Chapter_465649" name="6_Chapter_465649"></a><a id="465649" name="465649"></a>Chapter 1: <a id="XREF_21925__Introduction" name="XREF_21925__Introduction">Introduction</a>

Me again. This line refers to the .css file that I imported:

This line is the only reference I see to FM_:

It's not a paragraph style. On the other hand, "Chapter" is one of the FM styles I use, but it apparently hasn't been imported properly.

A possible clue: In the Robohelp page, the first line is blank. The second line is also blank, but it has a book icon. The third line includes my chapter title, and it has two book icons.

Silly question: What do the book icons indicate? I haven't run across a description of them in the online help.

Thank you for your help, Jeff.

Report · Feb 17, 2021

The little books are probably xref bookmarks.

I suspect that the last css file referenced is what's messed it up - try renaming it and see what happens.

Report · Feb 17, 2021

Thank you, Jeff. I finally found the PDF version of the user guide, which is actually searchable. You are correct about the xref bookmarks.

I tried your suggestion about copyng the css file, and got the same results. I also tried with another file in the book; same results.

Report · Feb 17, 2021

Did you rename it outside of RH? The idea is to make it unusable inside the RH topic. Then it should use the last one it finds - your "01_introduction.css" file.

Report · Feb 24, 2021

Hi there, I think I'm facing a similar problem as the one described here.

I am using RoboHelp 2020.3.32 / FrameMaker 16.0.1.817 / Windows 10

I cannot get a very simple RH project to work, when the project links or imports FrameMaker files. RH seems to be ignoring the default.css file. It generates HTML files with links to CSS files that do not exist:

rhstylemapping.css does not exist.

editstyle.css does not exist.

DMINS1FR.css does not exist. Even if I add this file manually, it continues to be ignored.

(DMINS1FR is the name of the linked FM book).

By contrast, the generated HTML files in my projects involving Word files include a link to default.css, as expected :

And such projects work fine.

As a result in my projects involving FM files:

- One HTML file is generated for each chapter in the book. Chapters are not split by topics even though I made the style selection in "Start New Topic From Style".

- Instead, where I expect to find my split up topics (in CONTENTS), I see an incredibly long list of bookmarks.

- HTML files do not pick up the style mapping (paragraphs or characters)

- HTML files include many errors such as "the id xxxx must be unique"

Any help appreciated!

Thanks, Elouan

Report · Feb 24, 2021

Elouan, you've confirmed for me that the problem isn't my lack of recent experience with RoboHelp. Apparently, RoboHelp really isn't working as expected. I'm going to open a case with Tech Support.

I'm really curious as to whether anyone on the list has actually been successful in importing the latest FrmeMaker into the latest RoboHelp, and having the linked .css file work correctly.

Report · Feb 24, 2021

I believe FrameMaker 2020 Update 1 is a minimum requirement.

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Report · Feb 24, 2021

Thank you, Peter. I have the latest version, FrameMaker 16.0.1.817. Do you know of a later version?

Report · Feb 25, 2021

I am not a Framemaker user but I suspect that we are talking about the same version if the marketing name of FrameMaker 2020 is what translates to version 16.

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

Report · Mar 31, 2021

Thank you, Jeff and Peter, for trying to help me with this issue. I ended up contacting Adobe Tech Support. The solution was included in the latest update, RoboHelp 2020.4.173. I can now successfully import my .css files.

Unfortunately, it looks like this latest version did away with Responsive HTML5 output. Guess I'll have to start a new thread to address this.

Report · Mar 31, 2021

Highly doubt that - probably just need to create a new output preset.

Report · Mar 31, 2021

Thank you, Jeff. That worked.

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No Styles Imported from FrameMaker