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How do I make RoboHelp report missing graphics?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:45:58 GMT

[RoboHelp 9] Before building my CHM, I need to find out if any linked graphics are missing from the project's \graphics sub-folder. Is there any way I can make RoboHelp report missing graphics? The Broken Links report doesn't care if graphics are missing, only if hyperlinks are missing their targets. The Image Report just lists all the images referenced by the topics, but doesn't test if they are actually present in the required location. And if I build the help, the OutputLog.txt does not report that an image was missing. Any ideas how to detect missing images, before my CHM goes public?

Multiple issues with See Also controls when importing topics (RoboHelp 9)

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:47:53 GMT

I was wondering if anyone has found workarounds to a very flaky area of RoboHelp...

Suppose you create several topics A, B, C and D, each with a See Also control in it. Let's suppose all the topics are assigned to the same See Also keyword, say 'Alphabet'. At a later date you create a new project, and need to import your old topics. The following problems arise:

1) When the topics are imported, RoboHelp does not recreate the 'Alphabet' See Also keyword in the See Also pod. However, the See Also functionality works (sort of) when the project is built. It is not possible to manually add the 'Alphabet' keyword in the See Also pod, because RoboHelp tells you it already exists! The result is an invisible 'Alphabet' See Also keyword, to which you cannot add further topics. As a workaround, I found it is essential to manually add the 'Alphabet' See Also keyword BEFORE importing the topics, and RoboHelp will then correctly assign A, B, C and D to it. However, this can be very awkward if you have hundreds of topics to import and are not sure what See Also keywords the topics reference.

2) When the topics are imported and the project is built, the See Also control does not work as expected. In RoboHelp, right-clicking the See Also control and choosing See Also [] Properties... reveals that the options you previously set, such as 'Popup menu' or "If no topics are associated with any of the See Also keywords..." have been lost! So all those nasty Topics Found dialogs return when you build the help (instead of popups). If you have a See Also control placed in every topic for consistency, it will never grey out if the topic doesn't belong to any See Also keywords.

3) When the topics are imported and the project is built, the current topic's name appears in its own list of See Also topics, i.e. it self-references. So for example, if you are viewing topic A and click the See Also link, topics A, B, C and D are listed, instead of just B, C and D. However, when you create new See Also keywords in RoboHelp, assign topics, and build the help, they work correctly and do not show the calling topic's name.

I spent hours analysing the HTML code of files I am importing, and the code of brand new topics created in RoboHelp, and I can see no obvious differences apart from some -1/0/1 flags in the green Metadata section preceding the SeeAlso code. I even tried changing these flags in my import files to exactly match the flags of new topics that RoboHelp just built, but when importing they still don't work. Clearly RoboHelp stores crucial See Also information elsewhere in the project, but does not make this reliably transportable by adding it to the HTM files that it builds, despite the huge Metadata comment block.

Adobe needs to put a lot of work into making it possible to cleanly re-use files as content re-use is a very common, and often critical, requirement.

Will TCS4 get a free update to Acrobat XI?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:19:35 GMT

I have just received an email telling me about the Acrobat XI. So I was planning to upgrade to TCS4 very soon, but now it seems I would be buying an 'old' version of Acrobat, together with an 'upgrade' to Illustrator (instead of Photoshop) that I don't need. Does somebody in Adobe's 'product planning' department need to be sacked?

Very slow printing to default Adobe PDF printer

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:00:28 GMT

I have a 150 page FrameMaker document (with lots of linked Illustrator CS4 files) that is taking 7 MINUTES to print to the default Adobe PDF printer. In contrast, an old QuickSilver / Interleaf document that is 200 pages long and contains even more graphics embedded as huge TIF files, takes 20 seconds to print to the same default Adobe PDF printer.

I have tried all the suggestions I can find on the web, including Adobe forums, but nothing works. Can anyone suggest why printing from FrameMaker 9 to Adobe PDF is taking such a long time? It would appear to be a FrameMaker problem, since every other application can print to the Adobe PDF printer without any problems, and so can FrameMaker... but only at a snail's pace!

I am using TS2 (FrameMaker 9 and Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended) on a 3.0 GHz Quad Core PC running Windows XP Pro.

Inconsistent transparency according to object's position on page

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:34:39 GMT

I have a corner object that uses a radial gradient, with 100% opacity at the center, and 0% opacity at the edge. When laid over a rounded rectangle object, the corner object has the appearance of 'fading out' at the edge, just as intended, no problem. However, if I copy (or move) these two objects (Alt+drag) to a different part of the page, the copied/moved corner object seems to lose the effect of its gradient (even though it is apparently still applied, evidenced by selecting the object and choosing the gradient tool), and appears to become a solid colour.

- I have checked every object is on the correct layer: corners, on top of rounded rectangles, on top of background.

- The problem is not a screen issue, as it is evident when the page is printed too.

So I cannot work out why moving the object to a different place on the page affects its gradient. Any ideas?

(I can't see any way to attach the source file. Is that possible?)

What exactly is ArtboardRect?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:50:46 GMT

I am desperately trying to get VB.net to set the ArtboardRect property so I can automate the resizing of the artboard to fit the artwork. Whatever I try, I always get a meaingless 'exception' message back from VB :-). From another thread, it appears easy in Javascript, using:

var myVisibleBounds = docRef.pageItems[0].visibleBounds;

....[set values in code].

docRef.artboards[0].artboardRect = myVisibleBounds;

etc.

However, I cannot work out whether ArtBoardRect is simply an array of four values (doubles probably) or a structure, etc. The ExtendScript Object model viewer says only this:

Artboard.artboardRect
Data Type: Rect
Adobe Illustrator CS4 Type Library
Size and position of artboard.

and this:

Rect
Base Class: Array
Adobe Illustrator CS4 Type Library
The Rect class is an array with integer indexes whose values represent the left, right, top and bottom properties of a rectangle. It also has length property.

So is it really an array? With 4 elements or 5? What type are the values?

Any help would be much appreciated, since Illustrator has no quick way to resize the artboard to the drawing object bounds (click Artboard tool, pull down drop down from toolbar, choose Fit Artboard to Artwork Bounds, zzzz) - and yet this is something I (and lots of others) need to do to every single drawing before importing it to FrameMaker.

Recorded mouse movement slower than real time

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:05:24 GMT

I am recording a 1280 x 1024 demonstration. Everything works fine apart from mouse movements. At one point I click on an OK button in a dialog at the center of the screen, then immediately move the mouse to the top left corner (a File menu). Although I did this fast during recording, playing back the slides using Preview (or viewing the exported SWF video) shows the mouse crawling up to my File menu! I have the "Actions in real time" option selected, but it doesn't seem to help. My viewers are going to get very bored watching some imbecile moving his mouse this slowly ;-)

Why is the mouse movement being slowed down so much, and how can I get Captivate 4 to record my mouse movements accurately (i.e. in real time)?

Can I display one section, and hide others with one click?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:16:13 GMT

In an old Help editor that I use (ForeHelp), each topic contains some common text at the beginning, followed by 6 sections separated using DIV tags. The page opens with all of the DIV sections hidden. A java script runs on each page, so that when you click one of 6 radio buttons (in the common text), it displays one of the DIV sections below the common text, and simultaneously hides all the other sections. So to the user, clicking a radio button appears to just 'switch' the displayed text to a different product's help information. Is there a simple way I can duplicate this behaviour in RoboHelp 8? I have investigated drop down text, expanding text, and triggers and targets, but none seems to have a feature for hiding some sections when displaying another.

New to Robo: are crashes and slow performance the norm?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:13:51 GMT

I'm using RoboHelp for the first time today. Started it up. New blank project, no problem. Now, I'm going to need to import a lot of HTML files into RoboHelp, that were generated by an old HAT (ForeHelp)....

Issue 1:

I go to the File, Import menu and select one of my .htm files. I have put the .htm file into its own folder together with any associated files that the HTML refers to. CRASH! No warnings, no messages, just a "This program needs to close" error. YOU WHAT? If RoboHelp couldn't understand the HTML I gave it, then why didn't RoboHelp's Import code issue a "There was a problem with reading the file" error at the every least? So, outside RoboHelp I take out anything in the HTML file that isn't plain vanilla HTML...

Issue 2:

...and start RoboHelp again. This time the HTML file imports, but takes ages to load a medium sized graphic within the topic... but when it has, editing any surrounding text becomes absolutely impossible, since the whole application has slowed to a crawl! There's screen corruption everywhere, with text laid on top of other text - a complete disaster....

Issue 3:

So I remove all references to the graphic from the HTML file and import it again. The same problem exists - impossible to edit text without screen corruption all over the place and massive slowdown. Then I realise the topic references a background image (a tiny 585 byte .GIF image). So again, I close RoboHelp, edit the HTML file to remove references the BODY BACKGROUND image, and re-import it afresh into RoboHelp. At last, I can edit the text in real-time! Then as an experiment, I use RoboHelp to assign the topic a backgorund image, exactly as specified in the Robohelp files. I use the same tiny 585 byte .GIF again, and it appears in the topic as expected.... but that massive slowdown and screen corruption is there again! What the hell is the point of allowing me to assign a background image to a topic, if the editor is so hopelessly designed it can't handle it?

In summary, I am astounded out how utterly flaky and incompetent RoboHelp seems to be. I have never used software that is so miserably slow and unreliable from the very outset. So what is this old ForeHelp application that I'm using, you might ask? Well, in 2001 when I was last selecting a HAT, it was winning all the awards for being the best HAT. Naturally, back then I tested the demo of RoboHelp too... but because it crashed constantly from the moment it started up (importing RTF files back then), I gave up with it, slack jawed at just how bad it was compared with ForeHelp. I've been happily using ForeHelp ever since, and it absolutely flies, even when editing my 750,000 word 1600 topic help file! Unfortunately, ForeHelp was sold up, with parts of its technology being bought by... ComponentOne, makers of Doc2Help!

I had thought that perhaps RoboHelp would have been tidied up after all these years of ownership by Adobe, but apparently not. It is truly disgraceful that a product that costs this much can crash and burn with no proper error handling, simply when attempting to import a file. It is unnacceptable that a product that costs this much can have such a hopelessly incompetent editing window, when my ancient ForeHelp blasts along with no issues whatsoever. RoboHelp doesn't even have the unified Adobe interface style either! If only I had known, I wouldn't have wasted my company's money on Technical Communication Suite 2, and would have just bought the (almost as creaky) FrameMaker 9 on its own.

Wrong palette in Appearance panel?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:35:48 GMT

I've setup a document template, specifying the color mdoel as CMYK. To check it is OK, I did a File, New from Template, chose my template and checked the File > Document Color mode. It correctly says CMYK.

Then I drew a rectangle, went to the Appearance panel, and clicked on the little white square next to Fill: . A mini palette opens up, but when I hover the mouse over a color swatch, it pops-up RGB values! However, if I shift-click that little white square next to Fill:, I correctly get shown CMYK sliders. Why is the little palette popping-up RGB values when the document is defined from the start as being in CMYK mode? (Note: I'm sure that hovering over the palette was popping-up CMYK values some time ago....)

In searching for an answer I've seen references to "the default startup profile", but have no idea where this is or how to adjust its settings (if it's relevant anyway).