RoboHelp 7 Not Creating Topics from Word Heading Styles

[dbisque]

In the past, RoboHelp 7 HTML (using 7.03.001 now) has always successfully imported my Word documents and separated the topics by Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, as expected.

Now, something's changed (and I cannot figure out what) so that the imported topics include only Heading 1. 

For example, when I import the Word document below and request topics be separated by Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3, the resulting project has a single HTM topic, named Heading_1.htm, instead of 9 different topics (one for each heading style).

Any suggestions what I might be doing wrong?

Heading 1

Body

Heading 2

Body

Heading 3

Body

Heading 1a

Body

Heading 2a

Body

Heading 3a

Body

Heading 1b

Body

Heading 2b

Body

Heading 3b

Body

[Peter Grainge]

When you import with RoboHelp 7 a dialog displays showing all the styles RoboHelp recognises as headings. Are the style being displayed in that dialog and are they ticked?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dbisque]

Yes, the styles are checked.  What's particularly frustrating is that I've been using RoboHelp to successfully generate the HTM topics for quite some time now.  The HTM topics generated by RoboHelp are subsequently used to create generate native Mac, Windows and Linux help for our software applications.  So, it's really important for the pagination to work properly.

I've tried all the usualy "tricks" I can think of (reinstalling, installing all the latest patches, etc.)

FWIW, RoboHelp 8's pagination works (using the 30-day trial evaluation copy), but I'm not ready to give up on 7 yet.

Thanks so much for your help and suggestions!

[Peter Grainge]

Willing to send me the document? See the contact page on my site.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dbisque]

First off, thanks so much for your offer and all your help so far.

I am willing to send you the document, however, "any old Word document" exhibits the same behavior on my machine.

For example, the above "simple" Word document exhibits the same behavior as the original 300 page Word document when imported into RoboHelp 7 (that is, RoboHelp 7 generates a single topic even though the Word document has multiple headings).

That's why I suspect either a bug, or a Registry setting, or some other configuration setting or other has gone awry on my machine.

Thanks again.

[Peter Grainge]

Send me any document that you cannot get to create topics based on headings.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dbisque]

I sent you a private message with a link to a Word document...

[Peter Grainge]

The document imported cleanly with a topic for each heading.

Nothing ticked in the first dialog.

In the second only H1 was ticked so I ticked H2 and H3.

Try uninstalling just patch 3. I haven't seen anyone report this problem so I am not hopeful but it's worth a try. If that fails uninstall patch 2 and then patch 1, then uninstall RH and then reinstall all.

Do you have a second PC you can install RH on as an alternative? You are allowed to install it on a second machine and you don't need to activate it for this purpose.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

Just looking again at the thread, I see you have gone down the uninstall route. Sorry I missed that. I'll be interested to see if you get the problem on another PC.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[dbisque]

Installing RoboHelp and Office on a "fresh" machine does indeed create the RoboHelp topics from Word heading styles.  Thanks for this tip!

My development box has something "amiss" somewhere along the line, and I'll have to scrub the Registry, settings, etc. and see if I can find the culprit.

Thanks for all your help.

[Peter Grainge]

A simple uninstall and reinstall should do the job. If you have already done that (haven't looked back through the thread) try using RevoUninstaller but do read the instructions.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[DWesten]

I experienced the same problem - one topic being generated instead of separate topics.  I am new to this version so it could very well be user error...can you help troubleshoot?

I believe I followed all the steps presented.  I even went in and associated Word style Heading 1 and 2 with a RoboHelp style Heading 1 and 2, made changes and then clicked OK.  I ended up with one topic and several sub-topics...Each topic should be a separate topic just as the previous blogger wanted.

[DWesten]

Where in the steps do you specify the headings to generate a topic and sub-topic?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

When mapping the styles, look for something that says "Pagination" - that's the trigger to treat whatever style you're on as a breaking point during the import.

[dbisque]

In RoboHelp 7, after the "Import Word Document Wizard" is finished importing the Word document, the Split On Style window appears.  Select the styles you wish to create new topics from.

I my case (on my development computer only), RoboHelp creates topics based on the Heading 1 style.  My workaround is to use a separate computer with a separate installation of RoboHelp 7 to create the project with properly separated topics.  (Uninstalling RoboHelp 7 from scratch did not help the dev box.)

Note that RoboHelp 8's Word import is similar, but you have to open a separate dialog box to select "Pagination" specifically.

[mgordon_avn]

I have been experiencing the same problem when using RoboHelp HTML 7 to import an MS Word .doc file and create WebHelp output. I am using MS Word 2007 but keeping the file as a .doc file - MS Word 97-2003 compatible. This import and WebHelp creation process worked fine before - during more than one conversion RoboHelp HTML 7 created one HTML file per Heading 1 style - with the same MS Word input file but this time around the import created a single HTML output file containing all Heading 1 styles rather than treating each as an endpoint for an HTML file.

I deleted unused styles from the MS Word source file and confirmed that in fact "real" Heading 1 styles were used. I even created a simple dummy file with the default Heading 1 and Heading 2 styles from MS Word's normal.dot and still experienced the same problem. This convinced me that it is a RoboHelp HTML 7 code bug.

The workaround I discovered consists of placing a section break continuous - possibly bracketed by Normal style paragraph marks if this proves convenient (the previous section ends with a table) or necessary (RoboHelp HTML still ignores the Heading 1 style as a file endpoint) - immediately before the Heading 1 style that is not treated properly by RoboHelp HTML 7. This approach changes the page layout slightly but that is a small price to pay.

One side effect of this workaround seems to be that the table of contents (TOC) in RoboHelp HTML isn't quite right after import and prior to WebHelp files creation. This TOC anomaly occurred at the first Heading 1 that was formerly ignored by RoboHelp HTML 7 as a file endpoint (this is the second Heading 1 in the MS Word file). The anomaly shows up as a TOC heading that points to the HTML file associated with the prior Heading 1 paragraph. For example if the source MS Word file contains Heading 1 paragraphs named "Heading 1 First Instance", "Heading 1 Second Instance" and "Heading 1 Third Instance", then after import the TOC entry for "Heading 1 Second Instance" points to the HTML file associated with "Heading 1 First Instance". This anomaly is easily correctable by adding a new TOC entry for the HTML file associated with "Heading 1 Second Instance". The bottom line is that you'll need to check each TOC entry after import and make sure that each one points to the correct HTML file.