RoboHelp 9 Overwriting Manual Edits to HHP

[Karen_Graf]

Hello,

We have always been able to merge our multi-file help system by manually editing the [MERGE FILES] section of the .HHP before our final compile.  With RoboHelp 9, we manually edit that section, but when we open a RoboHelp project and just compile, RoboHelp overwrites that section with hardcoded rather than relative paths, breaking the merge as soon as we move the .CHMs to a different location than the authoring folder.

Can anyone help?  Is there another tool that we could compile the projects with that won't overwrite the .HHP?

Karen Graf

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Karen.

This was an issue in RH8 also. The secret is to edit the HHP file to remove the hard coded paths. I do it with the RH project open but before I compile. It works for me.

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The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[Karen_Graf]

Hello Colum,

Thank you so much for your reply.

We saw this in RoboHelp 7 as well, but could always use the workaround that you describe here.  However, it seems that in RoboHelp 9, no matter how we do it, the hard-coded paths return.

Have you tried this in RoboHelp 9 yet?

Karen

[RoboColum_n_]

I have to admit that although I was part of the beta-test team fro RH9 I didn't test that particular scenario. I largely concentrated on WebHelp output. We are still using RH8 in our production environment but let me see if I can reproduce it in RH9. It may have to wait until tomorrow though.

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The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[Karen_Graf]

Hi Colum,

I think I may have found a clue to my problems on merging our RoboHelp 9 HTML Help projects.  After I compile all the child projects, I then compile the parent (Master) project and copy the HHC down to the child projects to complete the merge.  Then when I compile the child projects again, the Outlook View displays the following error message but compiles "successfully" anyway:

....

MCMaster.hhc
HHC3004: Warning:
MCMaster.hhc :
The HTML tag "?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?" is not a valid HTML tag (it does not begin with an alphanumeric character).

....

However, when I view the help projects, the TOCs and Indexes are not populated.  The tabs are there, but blank.

If I copy the old McMaster.hhc (the HTML version from RoboHelp 7, not the XML version from RoboHelp 9) back into all the projects, the child projects compile without errors and the TOC and Index are fine!

Does this info help you (or anyone else) help me?

Karen

[RoboColum_n_]

Interesting Karen. Thanks for reporting this. I have made Adobe aware of this thread as the fact that a RH7 file compiles OK signifies a bug me thinks.

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The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[Karen_Graf]

Thank you Colum!

I'm in a bit of a pinch here for time, so if anyone from Adobe can help me figure out a workaround, I sure would appreciate it!

Karen

[Karen_Graf]

I've logged the "HHC3004: Warning:" as a bug.  I can create a workable master HHC by hand and use that for a short while.  However, I'm still unable to get the projects to merge due to the reappearing hard-coded paths in the [MERGE FILE] section of the HHP.

Anyone find a workaround for this yet?

Karen

[Peter Grainge]

Karen

Please see the other thread.

We are talking about the same problem here, correct?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge