View FrameMaker 11 error console ?

[cornelius_zera]

How do I force the FrameMaker 11 error console to display? I have Edit>Preferences>Show File Translation Errors checked and I'm getting font error popups, but no console window is displayed.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

You should see that the console is open, but sitting "behind" FrameMaker. Hover over FM in your task bar to navigate to that window.

-Matt

@mattrsullivan

[cornelius_zera]

Matt, I appreciate the reply, but perhaps I should have been more specific. I'm still getting used to the new FM11 TCS interface (coming from FM7). I'm trying to create WebHelp output using the TCS Publish menu option from within FrameMaker 11. When I open the Frame book, I see the traditional FrameMaker Console that displays missing font information. When I try to publish a single chapter, and it succeeds, I see a secondary pod-based console window with messages about the RoboHelp conversion process to WebHelp output. If I try to publish the book file, it fails with the following message:

• Output generation failed. See console for error details.

Unfortunately, there are no details in either console window. The pod-based console window is completly blank, which obviously makes debugging the conversion failure difficult. Is there another console window that I am missing, or has anyone experienced similar behavior?

Thank you.

Cornelius

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

As a troubleshooting step, try bringing your FM content into a RH project and generate help from within it - it may give you more info about what it thinks is "wrong" with your FM content.

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Jeff makes a good point about troubleshooting via RH. You might also troubleshoot using one of the sample docs (Report Numeric, for example) to see if the system works properly.

From your message, it appears you are already aware of slight errors in your FM Book...There is a good possibility that if you resolve your missing font messages (best to fix the issue, but you might also suppress the missing font message, or simply open all files in your book to address the messages one-at-a-time) you may find that the problem goes away.

Either way, let us know what you find out (marking Helpful and/or Correct Answer to help others later)

Regarding the Console...I considered mentioning the console panel earlier, but figured it would only cloud things. From what I recall, the console panel is mainly for XML related messages. Very convenient for certain things, but confusing when you now have 2 places to check for things!

-Matt

@mattrsullivan

[cornelius_zera]

Individual files and books crash RoboHelp with no log messages to identify the problematic area(s). I've debugged the root of the crashes to imported EPSI and EPSF illustrations created in legacy versions of Adobe Illustrator. When I open the illustrations in Illustrator CS6, update the text, and resave them, I can then reimport them into FrameMaker and the files run as expected. Unfortunately, I have thousands of legacy illustrations spread across hundreds of books that all work fine with FrameMaker 7 and WebWorks Publisher.

I appreciate your quick responses. Both were very helpful.

[Bob_Niland]

> When I open the illustrations in Illustrator CS6, update the text, and resave them, I can then reimport them into FrameMaker and the files run as expected.

Why not create an Action in AI to update them all?

We routinely do this with all new PDF art (which is unstable when imported into FM7.1, entirely apart from Unicode issues).

We've also batch convert mass quantities of EPSI images when an external consumer of the raw document source can't handle it (but can accept EPS and/or PDF).