Find and Replace in RH HTML

[tnewland82]

After upgrading to RH8, all instances of "em dash" symbols in projects are now appearing incorrectly. When we insert the "em dash" symbol, we always eliminate any spaces before and after the symbol. All projects that have been upgraded to use RH8 now add a space after the symbol, which is incorrect.

I have also installed the RH updates and opened a project that had not been upgraded before the update installs...same problem.

Due to the size of the projects, I have tried using the Find and Replace feature within the HTML view; unfortunately, this did not work.

Has this issue been addressed with Adobe? I ran into a similar issue with the upgrade to RH7, where the HTML coding for em dashes would come through in the design view and final .chm output file. Does anyone know of a Find and Replace feature within RH that will allow me to remove every instance where a space appears after the em dash symbol? I have found the FAR tool but would like to avoid it if possible, as I have read it can corrupt RH files.

[Peter Grainge]

There was one other post recently about this but otherwise this problem had gone quiet so I don't know why you are seeing it in a project that was not opened before applying the patches.

So turning to FAR, it is not the program that corrupts files. It is what the user does with it. As we usually say, it can fix a project in minutes and wreck it in seconds. That is because the user has not thought about what the search might find. For example, you might search for "class" thinking about your topic content but of course FAR works a code level so it will remove all your style classes as well. That is where the corruption comes in, not the software itself. It's rather like blaming the car for the crash.

If you back up first, there is nothing to lose.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[MergeThis]

FAR is extremely flexible; not only does it ignore spaces and line breaks when rooting out code (a failing of the RH F&R tool), but you can set up variables. This can be important when dealing with strings that include classes, and such.

For example, you can tell FAR to find strings that start with AA and end with BB (all of which contain ???), then replace them with AB???BA.

As Peter says, you must backup your projects first, and then very carefully determine what needs changing without damaging anything else. Another tip is this: some replacement processes are not simply one-time-through runs; rather, you might find that your process requires one or more "prep" runs before running a final F&R.

Good luck,

Leon