RoboHelp 8 - Help with Compressing Images

[pmudge07]

Hello Experts,

I am hoping you can help me. I am working on a revising a project where many (85%) of the imageswithin the file will be ones that were taken previously. After speaking with our database admins in relation to the help file that I compile for them to use with our software, they requested that we try and compress the help file....I noticed that the images that I have are in some cases rather large. Is there any way within RoboHelp that I can "globally" compress all of the images or will this have to be done outside of Robohelp image by image?

any help you can provide or a path to direct me in would be greatly appreciated

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

This is something that must be done outside of RoboHelp using other tools. You might need to examine each image and make determinations as to whether the images even need to be presented at the size they are. You may find you can easily crop them to show only the relevant area. For example, consider this one:

Click the image to view at larger size

If I'm only concerned about showing the File menu, I can crop it so it looks like this:

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[pmudge07]

Thanks so much....I kind of knew deep down it was going to be a image by image project, but thought there might be a slight chance of something that I could do. Thanks for your help.

[lyddion]

pmudge07...Just curious, but do you find that having images slows down your help screen pop-ups?

[pmudge07]

I didn't notice it before when I was running on a Windows XP version.....however, one thing that was horrible was the speed of the application. I found that I could type much much faster than the application could enter the items.  However, once the file compiled, it didn't seem to matter if there was a graphic or not within the help windows. For me it is a matter of the actual time to process/write the help system that concerns me with the help system, I just got bugged from the It guys who install it on the customer site, they wanted the file smaller. It will be a long process but it will be worth it downstream.

Hope this answered your questions. (sorry for the narrative )

[lyddion]

Thanks for the answer!  I added screenshots and even .JPG "bullets" from Robohelp's own gallery to try to make my help look "prettier".  I have this really terrible lag when I hit F1 on a screen and it takes several seconds to return  the correct help window (based on mapped fields in the BSSCDefault.h file).  I was trying to figure out if I just have too many graphics and bells and whistles in my project.  The size of it isn't too much of an issue at the moment, but having to wait several seconds for a help screen to display is.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

pmudge07 wrote:

I didn't notice it before when I was running on a Windows XP version.....however, one thing that was horrible was the speed of the application. I found that I could type much much faster than the application could enter the items...

Curious here. Can you please click File > Rename Project and screen capture the dialog you see when you do that? I'm not asking you to actually follow through with the process, only to get the dialog up so we can examine it.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[pmudge07]

Sure thing....here is what I see.  (Just a  note, I was able to go back to the old computer to pull this for you, but I no longer work in the Windows XP environment, and although right now, I am not doing much writing, just setting up the topic structure, I haven't noticed the same slowness that I used to experience before. I am now using a Windows 7 64bit computer...just dealing with the crashing of the topics frequently (like 7 times within a 3 hour time window).

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

Okay, that's what I suspected and was afraid of.

I'd be willing to bet a dollar against a donut that many of your issues are a result of the path you are using. I note that what it shows here begins with "\\" and that, my friend, indicates your project is being accessed across a network. These forums are rife will all manner of issues related to working this way.

So, the first thing I'd suggest you do is to create a folder in this location:

C:\Projects

Inside that folder you will create a folder for each project. For example, if your project is named SAM 10 Online Help, it would look like this:

C:\Projects\SAM 10 Online Help

Close everything down and use Windows Explorer to copy your project there. Then open RoboHelp and open the project from the new location. You will be amazed and awed by the speed improvement. And other issues may resolve too.

If you say "IT said I have to work this way because they back up the location at \\JungFrau..." then I'll tell you that you should make periodic backups to that location. But the bottom line is that you should only ever consider working from your local C drive. That is, unless you really do enjoy all the ensuing issues of working the other way.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[pmudge07]

Thanks a million!....It is running very smooth and fast.....thanks for the tip. I will just make a habit of each day when done with the project to make a copy to the network folder....thanks.