Rh 8: HHC file in HTML or XML?

[Benjroux]

Hello,

Is there a way of getting the HHC file in HTML rather that in XML? I was using Rh X5 before and the creation of the HHC file was done in HTML but with version 8 it seems I can only have it in XML.

Anyone?

Thanks in advance

[Peter Grainge]

RH8 is designed to work with XML files for things like this so that's the way it is. Why is it an issue as it is not a file you touch directly?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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[Benjroux]

Here is my story:

My company usually works with FrameMaker with which we create our documentation. Then we convert our FM files with Mif2Go, place them in our directory and render them with our in-house server which converts them in XHTML. And finally our Product Help gives the desired corporate output.

My problem at the moment is that I receive Word files from a department and they are reluctant to use FM. I was therefore given the project to find a tool to convert Word files to HTML, bearing in mind that the file I need to end up with are: separate HTML pages for topics (heading titles) and an HHC file for the TOC. After searching for HATs, I selected MadCap Flare and Robohelp. MadCap flare was eliminated afterwards because of an incompatibility of the latest version with our good old Word 2003 (I had a problem with equation present in my documents).

Now I suppose that you know what I do: in a way I bypass the software and use it almost only as a Word file converter. The thing is that I have to clean the HTML files from additional and erroneous tags generated by Word and RH in order to make them compatible and accepted by our rendering server. My purpose is to bring manual modifications to a minimum but I must admit that I have persistent issues.

My last post about the HHC file now makes sense as I need this file in HTML in order the rendering server can accept it...!

By the way, I have another issue which is more RH-related concerning topics creation. My problem is that in my document | have titles with the same names but different contents and when I take a look in the TOC or generate the output, RH keeps only one HTML topics (on the 3 created) for the 3 different part and leaves the other ones out of the TOC. I know that I can reorganise it manually in the software but I find it a bit weird that it gets confused so easily.

I assume that if the HHC problem cannot be solve, I will just stay with Rh X5.

Best Regards 

[Peter Grainge]

Well for sure the HHC is XML and cannot be HTML.

I guess you have looked at importing the DOCs into FM and that doesn't work for some reason. (I'm not a FM user)

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

[devjoe]

After you convert the project, compile it into HTML Help and use HTML Help Workshop to open the resulting .chm file and extract the .hhc file from it. Although ARH8 stores the .hhc file as XML, HTML Help needs the original HTML-ish format of the .hhc file, and this is naturally what gets compiled into it.

[help4_MDs]

I am resurrecting this old thread.

I am wondering if anyone was able to get an HTML version of the Rh8 HHC file?

I'm new to Rh, and in a similar situation to the original poster.  The software I document as coded it's own help system, that only pulls in the .hhc, .htm, and .gif files from the HTML help. The help hasn't been generated in 4 years (! That's why they hired me!). Now I'm discovering that the software is looking for HTML version of the toc.hhc, and the help system doesn't work with the newer XML version of toc.hhc.

I am creating HTML help output, but not using the compiled .chm, only some of the files that get generated.

Thank you!

Julie

[rajibdugar]

You can first generate HTML Help output(.CHM file). Then decompile the CHM file to get the HHC file in old HTML format.