Problem in viewing the webhelp output in a RoboHelp-DocumentX project

[Snehal_Yerawadekar]

Hi, I am working with Robohelp X5. The project is generated together with DocumentX and hence contains more than 15,000 files. Secondly, the proper webhelp output is extremely essential for this project as it concerns the links which are also in thousands.

A problem has occured where the webhelp is getting generated, but I cannot view the output. The generated file occurs in the webhelp folder, but displays only a single page with no navigation pane or even the content/search tabs.

The project had been successful in April. While updating it, I copied the Robohelp project folder and things started. Initially the prosource folder was showing an error while opening the project. When I copied it again to a different location, the project file opened and functioned fine, but the output problem is still there.

What I have now id - The original folder with the crashed project, 2 new copies of  this folder where the project works fine and the webhelp is generated with no output.

Please help me, because starting from scratch with DocX files is a nightmare!

[Peter Grainge]

By DocumentX do you mean the Microsoft Word format .docx?

If so I am not surprised you have had trouble. Quite simply, X5 is not Word 2007 compatible.

I don't follow "hence contains more than 15,000 files". What's the connection with using Word that causes a high number of files that would not occur otherwise?

15,000 topics in one project is high anyway and at the level I would expect problems.

Are you using RoboHelp for Word or RoboHelp HTML?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Snehal_Yerawadekar]

No, Document X! is a tool that deals with the xsd or schema files. The Robohelp project is built in combination with the Document X! and these schema files converted to html files are linked in various manners throughout the project. Each page has several hyperlinks and each link has inter-related links of its own. This makes it very complex. Every basic schema has a set of files and thus if a single link breaks, there are several to be restored.

One more thing is that the webhelp generation in my case begins and gets completed successfully. However, the output is not displayed. Currently it occurs in the webhelp folder and is seen as a single page with no navigation pane. Towards the end of generation of the webhelp, the lower pane shows a message of template error!

[Peter Grainge]

Aside from the obvious observation of checking the template, I cannot help you much on this. I have no knowledge of Document X.

Whilst I think 15K files is way too high for a single project, if it has been working up to now...

"Currently it occurs in the webhelp folder and is seen as a single page with no navigation pane." That sounds a bit like opening the default topic rather than the start page.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Snehal_Yerawadekar]

Hi, yes indeed, I do need help regarding this. As I have observed, there is no problem with any links or even with the project. It is running fine. The only problem is this template error that is occuring. As you put it, I think it is selecting the default page. How do I resolve this issue.

In this case, after the project gets built from docX, the role of that tool is over. It is entirely with Robohelp, that the documentation is managed. I had another doubt too. Do the broken links in Robohelp need to be resolved one by one? Is there any way out to resolve multiple broken links at the same time? I had several when I generated the project initially.

Please let me know.

[Peter Grainge]

The help has a start page, the page defined in the first field of the wizard, and a default topic, defined lower down that page. The latter is what appears in the topic pane of the tri-pane window. Maybe you are opening the default topic instead of the start page.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge