Upon save, drop-down topics re-order or disappear

[Guest]

RoboHelp HTML version 8

Project recently converted from RoboHelp 5

I am running Office 2007

My project contains:

• 300 topics
• conditional build tags
• drop down links & hyperlinks

Our clients use the help as both a "how to" and a call center script tool, for example:

3.  Click OK.

     Say to the customer:  "I have completed your order.  May I assist you with anything else today?"

Yes

No

Both the "Yes" and "No" are d-d links with how to instructions and scripting.  Both could contain d-d links.

Just before I inherited this project three days ago, it was converted to RoboHelp 8 (from RoboHelp5).  Today, when I opened the project for the first time, all the drop-down links were in the correct order.  After making a text-only change, and then clicking Save, the editor is displaying the drop downs in the wrong order.  Not only did the formatting change for one of the wandering d-d links, but it also changed to a hyperlink.  I checked the code, and it's wrong as well.  At first I thought the problem stemmed from the order in which the drop-down text editors are closing, but in checking other areas that I didn't change that are within the same topic, the d-d links are also out of order, and some have converted to hyperlinks.  The d-d link IDs are not changing, just the location of the link within the topic.  The links appear to be staying in the same "area," that is, a link that should be at the top is near the top and not at the bottom of the topic.

A work around that kinda works is to close all the small text editors and preview the topic. While in preview, refresh, and then go back to the text editor.  If this does work, it isn't permanent.  The links only remain in place until I click a link.

Does this problem sound familiar to anyone?

This topic is one of the biggest in the help because it walks through verifying the customer.  Our client offers several products, four of which
are covered in this topic w/all sorts of contingencies:  active/inactive account; can remember/can't remember account number; can remember/can't remember user name; can remember/can't remember password; etc.  I'm wondering if the topic itself is too large.

Thanks

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Neisa and welcome to the RH community.

This sounds a bit like a problem we had in one of my colleagues topics when they first upgraded. I can't remember the specifics but it was centred around a drop down within a dropdown. I think it was where both dropdowns had a bulletted list and one had a table but I could be wrong. Can you give my old brain a steer as to your drop down content and I'll be able to confirm whether this is the same thing?

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[Guest]

Colum,

Thank you for responding to my plight so quickly.  Yes, to all of your scenarios.  The drop downs in question do contain more d-d links, bulleted and numbered lists, and, some cases, tables.  I have taken a screen shot and will post it as soon as I have permission to do so.

[RoboColum_n_]

No problem Niesa. When you do get permission to post a screen image use the camera toolbar icon as indicated below. It is much quicker as the attachment method has to be moderated before we can see it.

Incidently we found that the only way around this was to rearrange the content inside the d-d.

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Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.

[Guest]

Colum,

Thanks for the suggestion about the camera tool. I have attached the screen shot.  The green text is the d-d link; black text is instructions to the call center agent; red text is the scripting the agent reads to the customer.

When you wrote that the only way to fix the problem is to rearrange the content in the d-d, what does that mean specifically?  Change the formatting?  Remove the bullets and numbers, as well as the tables?  The previous writer reorganized another topic with all the same attributes (d-d links, bulleted & numbered lists, and tables) to make it less cumbersome, is that what you are suggesting? 

Niesa

[RoboColum_n_]

Yes that is a similar scenario to what we were attempting. I am pretty sure that with us the problem was related to the table in the lower level d-d. We ended up rearranging the topic so the table was elsewhere or not used at all. Sorry I can't be more precise but it was awhile ago now!

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Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.

[Guest]

Colum,

Bummer man.  I was hoping for a simple solution (where's the magic wand  when you need it?!).  I guess I'll be reorganizing the topic sooner than I expected.

Thanks for your help.

Niesa

[RoboColum_n_]

You may also want to report this as a bug to Adobe. You can do so via this link. The more of us who do, the more chance this will be fixed.

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Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.