Images missing after generate (RH8)

[BethRitt]

I recently converted 20 projects from HTML (CHM) help to WebHelp.  The majority of them contain many screen shots (JPG image files).  One project is loosing its images such that when generated, they appear as boxes containing that nasty red X.  The folders where the topics and images reside do not list the images files.  Doing the following steps fixes it temporarily:

1. Open each topic and double-click one image.

2. Click OK on the image import window.  I do not navigate and re-insert the image.

3. Click Save all.

4. All image files now appear in the folder within RH.  The image files have never left the folder

5. The generate is then fine.

The problem is if I close RH and restart, the folders I "fixed" will again not list any JPG files.  Only this one project is having this problem but I can't deduce what is different about it.

Any suggestions of where to look?

I am running RoboHelp 8.0.2 and Windows 7.

[Peter Grainge]

You say you converted the projects from CHM to WebHelp but you don't really convert, you simply generate a different output. Thus the way you have phrased it makes me wonder quite what you did, did you create a new project?

When you say the folders do not show the images, do you mean the source folders or the output folders? I'm guessing the former.

Are the images in the same folder as the topic or in a folder with nothing but images? If the latter, add a topic to that folder and then apply an Exclude tag to the topic.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[BethRitt]

Peter,

You are correct, for "conversion" I changed the primary layout to WebHelp.  To allow for a merged WebHelp project I created a "blank" parent project and changed the output location of each child project to the "mergedProjects" subfolders.  I also had to reset the external links.

The source folders physically contain the JPG files, but they are not listed in the RH Project Manager panel.  The JPG files are not physically in the output folders after a generate.

The images are in the same folders as the topics where they are used.

[Peter Grainge]

First thing is to get the images appearing in Project Manager. Try renaming the folder. You change it back afterwards. This often causes the images to appear.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[BethRitt]

As a test, I changed the name of one folder.  Yes, the images were then listed.  I closed RH and restarted with the same project.  The images are again not listed in that folder.

[Peter Grainge]

Is your project on your local drive? What is the path to it, is it long?

Do the images that go missing have spaces in the filenames?

Have you tried deleting the CPD file and then reopening the project? (Backup first).

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[BethRitt]

Yes, the project is on my loacl drive.  The path isn't long; it's "C:\TMSHelp\Projects\WebAdmin".

I have been replacing the images because the UI style has changed.  The older images did have spaces, but the my new ones do not.  Regardless, all the images would disappear, spaces or not.

No, I had not tried deleting the CPD file.  So, I did it just now and reopened the project.  Magic, my images are all listed in all the folders!

Thank you very much.  I have noticed the "delete the CPD file" suggestion in other posts.  I will try that in the future when odd things happen.