Heading refuses to paginate into a new topic

[David__D]

Hi, I am using Tech Communicator Suite 4.

I have have a dozen RoboHelp projects with linked FrameMaker books, generating MS HTML Help (.CHMs) as my output.

In all of them, I have the import settings set so that any Heading1, Heading2 or Heading3's trigger a new topic in my CHM.

Everything is working fine apart from one stubborn project, where I have two headings (one H2 and one H3) which Robohelp just refuses to break into new topics for!

The CHM's ToC has them showing correctly (and if you click the relevent ToC node, it takes you to the heading) - but they're not seperate topics.

I'm completely baffled! I've tried saving the Frame source as a MIF and re-opening it, I've tried re-applying the H2 and H3 paragraph formats to the headings, I've tried adding new test headings (they don't work either - it's like I have a wierd Bermuda Triangle in the middle of my .fm file where RoboHelp won't recognise new headings!)

Any suggestions?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Can you show us a screenshot of the offending FM content? Are the H1 & H2 paratags right next to each other (i.e. followed right after each other, no different paratext between)?

[David__D]

Hi Jeff,

no, the paratags are not next to each other,

they have other stuff in between (which is no different to any other Heading tags I can see in the rest of the document or in my other projects).

Screenshot is attached.

The headings circled in green paginate into new topics in the CHM OK.... the two miscreants in red do not.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Assuming that the heading tags are all the same – how about creating a new blank RH project & importing fresh to see what’s happening in an import rather than a link situation?

[David__D]

Well I already tried creating a fresh RoboHelp project and re-linking... which didn't work.

I also tried doing an "Optimise file size" for the book in Frame, which I thought might clear out any dodgy cross-ref IDs etc.

Neither made any difference. I will try importing into a blank RoboHelp project then...

[David__D]

So, I tried importing the Frame book into a new RoboHelp project

I get the same problem - it does not split into new topics for those two particular headings. Everything else looks fine.

#baffled.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Can you share the FM content? I’m willing to have a look at it if you’d like – shoot me a PM for my e-mail.

[David__D]

Thanks Jeff, have PM'd you.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Got it & am playing with it right now….

Update – ok, I first tried just doing a straight import of the one .fm file to see if it would paginate correctly – seems to be working fine – I get Date & Time and the Synchronize Heading 2s busted up into RH topics no prob. Next step – try it on the .book file = that worked too. Last step, try linking the .book – that also seems to work fine.

Maybe it’s something to do with the .isf file? I’d be tempted to go and try again doing it manually, without the use of the .isf and see if that’s working for you.

If it helps, my TCS4 point versions are at 10.0.1.292 (RH) and 11.0.2.384 (FM)

[David__D]

Sorry, pardon my ignorance, but what's a .isf file?

In RoboHelp, I'm doing nothing more than right-clicking my linked Frame book in the Project Manager pod, doing an Update on it (at this point, I can already see it hasn't created .htm topics for those two headings in the middle), then I am just doing File > Generate to make my CHM file.

My FM11/RH10 are fully patched.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

The .isf file is the saved settings for your FM to RH conversion (if all your FM content is the same, you can set one up & export the settings – big time saver). You should first check (in RH) the File > Project Settings > Edit Conversion settings for FM docs: button to make sure that your Pagination settings are correct. See the Export button? That’s where you can create an .isf file to reuse.

Anyway – with a new project, you need to Generate first to pull the FM content in & split it up as your settings told it to do. With existing content, you should go back to your Project Manager and right-click on the book – select Force Update All – that should re-drag the FM content in and get split up again. Since I usually import, I just tested adding a new Heading 2 section at the bottom of the .fm file first, updated the book, then did the Force Update All & voila! - my new Heading 2 content is a brand new topic in RH.

[David__D]

thanks Jeff...

I'm pretty sure that *is* what I'm doing!

And, because I was stumped as to why it wasn't working for those two particular headings, I even went and made a brand new .xpj RoboHelp project from scratch, and set up File > Project Settings > Edit Conversion stuff all over again (going through Heading 1, 2 and 3 para styles and checking the box to split a topic on them). 

I tried it again on my machine this morning and it still didn't work 😕  Baffled!

If you still have time, perhaps I could send you my .xpj project file and see if you can reproduce my problem then? As I guess I might be doing something subtley different inside RoboHelp to you?

[David__D]

Well, Jeff gave me some help off forum, and managed to narrow down the source of the problem to my RoboHelp "Project Settings" (as encapsulated in a .isf file).

Basically, if we imported a known "good" .isf into my misbehaving project, it worked.

I will remember this trick for the future - thanks Jeff!!

(I still am pretty much at a loss to understand what was wrong with my original project's settings - I couldn't see anything in the RoboHelp dialogs that looked wrong - I guess they got "corrupted" in some way...)