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Can I reuse topics without reusing the formatting?

Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi everbody

I would like to create a new project where I can reuse my old topics. Can I import the topics in some unformatted form? I have a lot of trouble with weird old styles that don't look good neither as WebHelp nor as PDF. Is it possible to get rid off these styles and apply only nice, new, controlled styles?

Does anybody have any experience with that?

Thanks in advance!

Regards, Hanne

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

Hi again,

First about your borders in pdf. You best open a new question on the Printed documentation forum to keep this thread clear. I think I have seen this problem before, so please search a bit before you post a new question.

About the alignment. The bold style only makes your text bold, it isn't causing the strange alignments. I think I know what's causing it, but you're not going to like it: it means a lot of hand work

I'll assume that this problem is only with individual tables, on those ,

...

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Hanne.

You can create a new style sheet complete with all the style properties you require and then just assign this to the topics. All you'll have to do is ensure you use the same style names.


Read the RoboColum(n).

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Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Colum,

Thank you, but I have already tried that - somehow I managed to get it all messed up anyway. The HTML seems to contain an enormous amount of unused and (to me) incomprehensive code.

Anyway, thanks!

Regards, Hanne

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi,

Are the styles you are using all styles from a stylesheet, or are they all inline styles (or a mixture)? If you use only stylesheets, simply modify the stylesheet. If the topics contain inline styling, well... :'-(

If your topics contain inline styling (style="style definition"), you will have to delete all inline styling, but it'll be a lot of work. You may automate the process by designing some kind of script that removes all style attributes from your pages.

You can also modify your stylesheet by adding the !important declaration. This will not remove the inline styling, but let your stylesheet overwrite the inline styling. This is not a solution, just a quick fix until you fixed your styles.

Greet,

Willam

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Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Wiliam,

Thanks, but how do I know if my styles are inline? Do I see that from the HTML code? Or is it if I have applied a style manually to a paragraph or word?

Thanks again!

Hanne

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi,

Select a faulty paragraph and go to the HTML mode. If it looks like this:


<p class="classname">Your text</p>

you are using styles from a stylesheet. If it looks like this:

<p class="classname" style="some styling">

you are using inline styling. The same goes for individual words, except that the <p> tag is a <span> tag.

You can post the html code of a paragraph if you want us to look at it.

Greet,

Willam

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Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Wiliam,

That's great! I'm sending you a sample right away, then:

</head>
<body>
<div placeholder id=header style="width: 100%; position: relative;">
<p style="text-align: right;" align=right><span style="font-weight: bold;">Systemadministration</span></p>
</div>
<h1><a name=Vinduet></a>Vinduet 'Find jobrolles tilhør til org. enhed'</h1>
<p>Du finder vinduet ved at vælge menuen Administration &gt; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Medarbejdere</span>.
</p>
<p>Klik på søgeikonet <img src="..\..\search icon.png" x-maintain-ratio=TRUE
style="border: none; width: 25px; height: 25px; float: none;
       border-style: none; border-style: none;" width=25
height=25 border=0>i feltet <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jobrolles
tilhør til org. enh</span>.</p>

Hmmm... I can't see any "classname" in the code... is that bad?

Thanks again!

Regards, Hanne

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi,

You are using inline styling, but your example is rather harmless. The only thing I can see is that some words are bold and a paragraph is aligned to the right, and I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Is this the code from a faulty paragraph? If so, It's probably something in the stylesheet (a style you select from the drop down box). Can you post a screenshot of a faulty paragraph and tell how you want it to look?

Greets,

Willam

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi there

In addition to what Colum and Willam have kindly offered up, I'll also add to the chorus here and suggest that if you want to avoid any really nasty inline styling creeping in, avoid saving Microsoft Word documents as HTML. It does an awful job with HTML. Word was designed with print in mind. HTML was a kludge for it. So if you can, avoid mixing it in.

Cheers... Rick

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Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Rick,

Thanks, I'm sure you're absolutely right. But I am afraid my RoboHelp topics were already rather "polluted" when I got them - and I would really like not to have to type them all in agan 😉

Regards, Hanne

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Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Wiliam

I'm afraid I cannot produce a screen shot that is clear enough. But I would like to show you the following:

It is a small table with two columns and three lines where the text should be left aligned. In RoboHelp is looks fine, when when I view it as Webhelp, the words Funktion, OK, Annuller and Resultat are not correctly aligned. Can you see what is wrong? Is it the "bold" marking that does it?

<tr class=whs10 style="x-cell-content-align: top;" valign=top>
<td class=whs11 style="width: 37.899%; border-right-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-width: 1px;
border-bottom-width: 1px; background-color: #6699cc;" bgcolor=#6699CC
width=37.899%>
<p style="font-weight: bold;"><a name=Funktion></a>Funktion</td>
<td class=whs13 style="width: 62.101%; border-top-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px;
background-color: #6699cc;" bgcolor=#6699CC width=62.101%>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">Resultat</td></tr>
<tr class=whs10 style="x-cell-content-align: top;" valign=top>
<td class=whs14 style="width: 37.899%;" width=37.899%>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">OK</td>
<td class=whs15 style="width: 62.101%;" width=62.101%>
<p>Systemet tildeler rollen til enheden og lukker vinduet.</td></tr>
<tr class=whs10 style="x-cell-content-align: top;" valign=top>
<td class=whs16 style="width: 37.899%;" width=37.899%>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">Annuller</td>
<td class=whs17 style="width: 62.101%;" width=62.101%>
<p>Systemet lukker vinduet. Systemet tildeler ikke en rolle til enheden.</td></tr>
</table>

And, if you will allow me to ask yet another question: Can you tell why my table borders dissappear in the PDF version? I have "inherited" a lot of topics, originally Word documents, I suspect, and they all seem to have this problem in PDF eventhough the table borders look all right in RoboHelp.

Thanks a lot!

Regards, Hanne

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi again,

First about your borders in pdf. You best open a new question on the Printed documentation forum to keep this thread clear. I think I have seen this problem before, so please search a bit before you post a new question.

About the alignment. The bold style only makes your text bold, it isn't causing the strange alignments. I think I know what's causing it, but you're not going to like it: it means a lot of hand work

I'll assume that this problem is only with individual tables, on those , so it isn't a style sheet problem. If it where in your style sheet, all your paragraphs would be wrong. If you have this exact same problem in all tables, it'll probably be a css issue.

As you see in the code, most table rows <TR> and table cells <TD> have a class like class=whs10. This class is generated by robohelp when you create your output. In HTML mode, go to the top of the file and you'll find a <style> tag with the classes from your table. It may look a bit like this:

<style>

tr.whs10 {styling}

td.whs11 {styling}

</style>

One of these styles must have the text text-align: right; or text-align: center;. Delete all instances of these texts and your paragraph should align OK.

I think that most of your style issues are related to the whsxx styles, if you delete these styles from your topic, your styling should mostly reset. You then will have to restyle your topics, by hand... I don't know how many topics you have, but I suggest that you find out exactly what each styling problem is and link that back to a css style attribute. Then, remove that style attribute from the styles in the top of the topic.

You can find all css style attributes here, or you can post the issues and I'll tell you the corresponding style attributes. It might be wise to rewrite these topics when you have to add or remove some text, because these topics will give you problems every time you want to change a style.

Greets,

Willam

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Guest
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi Wiliam,

I guess I'll just have to get working then and look into those styles. As it is only a matter of some 20 topics, it should be realistic, too. Thanks again for helping!

And I'll take my PDF question to the right forum...

Regards, Hanne

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LEGEND ,
Aug 20, 2009 Aug 20, 2009

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Hi,

If the styles is too complicated, just rewrite the topics. As it is twenty topics, you may save more time rewriting them than learning html and css on the fly (although that knowledge will surely help you in the future).

Just out of curiousity, which language is your example in? Danish, Norwegian? It looks a bit like Dutch.

Greet,

Willam

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Guest
Aug 21, 2009 Aug 21, 2009

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Hi Wiliam,

Your 're probably right about rewirtiting the topics. I think I'll do that. It would have been nice, though, to actually understand what went wrong and be able to fix it. But then again, the reason why I am so happy about using RoboHelp is that it is so user-friendly (if one doesn't mess things up) and I am quite content that I do not have to deal with HTML normally. It never seems to become my first priority to learn HTML. But at least I know now where the strange whs styles come from and I will not hesitate to just delete them if they are causing trouble.

And yes, you're right, my example was Danish - I'm impressed that you could tell 🙂

Regards, Hanne

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Community Expert ,
Aug 23, 2009 Aug 23, 2009

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Rather than rewriting, just cut the text out of the imported topic (design view) and paste into notepad. This will copy the text, not the html behind the scenes. Ensure the blank paragraph in your topic is set to Normal (or whatever you have called your standard paragraph style), then just paste back into the topic and reformat using your styles.

(Sorry if that's what you intend anyway - the term "rewriting" always makes me nervous. )

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Guest
Aug 25, 2009 Aug 25, 2009

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Hi,

Thanks for the hint about Notepad.

Shamefully enough, I wasn't aware of the Notepad option so your advice was really very helpful 🙂

Most of my text appears in tables. It is easy to copy the contents of a table into Notepad... but I don't seem to be able to insert all the contents back into RoboHelp in one go. Would you happen to know some tips & tricks for thiat as well?

Most hopeful,

Hanne

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LEGEND ,
Aug 25, 2009 Aug 25, 2009

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Hi,

Notepad only supports plain text, so you'll have to copy and paste the HTML code of the tables and that’s the thing you want to avoid.

The tables you use are a mess (sort of), so to ensure that your tables have the correct style, remake them in RoboHelp. It may be more work than cut and paste, but you're certain to have the correct table format this time.

Greet,

Willam

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Community Expert ,
Aug 25, 2009 Aug 25, 2009

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Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention that only works for regular text, not tables.

The best I can suggest is copy the table code into a tool that can do regular expression search and replace and strip all the attributes out of the tags. (FAR, or HTML-Kit, or lots of others) Then paste the generic html code into Code View, and reformat it all in Design View.

If you're not familiar with regular expressions, it's probably just as easy to recreate the tables from scratch, as William suggests.

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