WebHelp TOC Hierarchy Indentation is Incorrect

[TimLMun]

We are using RoboHelp 10 on a Windows 7 platform.

We publish directly out of FrameMaker to WebHelp via RoboHelp. However, this is not a FrameMaker issue, so I hope this is the right forum.

Note that we check the format (indentation) of the headings in our TOC in our FrameMaker source files, and the FrameMaker TOC is formatted correctly.

When we publish to WebHelp, the format of the nodes is fine for everything that is a heading 1 or 2 in FrameMaker.

However, the hierarchy messes up sometimes at random on headings 3 or 4.

Here are two examples, where the underscore represents the indentation.

How the hierarchy should appear in WebHelp (and how it actually appears in FrameMaker):

Heading 1

___Heading 2

______Heading 3

_________Heading 4

How the WebHelp TOC hierarchy actually appears at times:

Heading 1 [open book icon] (always ok)

___Heading 2 [open book icon] (always ok)

______Heading 3 [topic icon]

______Heading 3 [topic icon]

______Heading 3 [topic icon]

______Heading 4 [topic icon]

______Heading 4 [topic icon]

______Heading 4 [open book icon]

_________Heading 3  [topic icon]

______Heading 4 [topic icon]

______Heading 4 [topic icon]

Anyone have any ideas about how to fix this?

Thank you!

Tim

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Is it behaving the same way if you do it the "normal way" and create a blank RH project and import the FM content?

I seem to recall something in the help that talked about how RH figures out what FM headings to use to make a ToC in the output had something to do with tabs being detected in the FM ToC. Getting down to the level 3 or 4 stage may pose problems for RH to figure out.

[TimLMun]

Thank you for the response Jeff.

We tried publishing directly from the files on a server to a folder on the server, and then moved everything to a local hard drive and tried again.

Either way, we get the results in the original post.

Then I tried importing the FrameMaker book into RoboHelp, and prior to publishing to WebHelp, the TOC view looks identical to the original post.

We can create the proper hierarchy manually using the New TOC Book and New TOC Page icons, and then copying and pasting the content from the improperly aligned books and icons, and then deleting the old ones. Obviously, we don't want to do that (although it is a very time-consuming work-around). [Edit: We would have to do this, because some topics that should be books are pages, and some topics that should be pages are books.]

In summary, something is corrupting the TOC hierarchy hand off between FrameMaker and RoboHelp, and we get the same results no matter how we create the WebHelp.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Tim

[TimLMun]

A couple of extra notes.

First, the book has seven chapters.  Four of the chapters have only three levels of heading, whereas three of the chapters have four levels of heading. (No chapter has more than four levels of headings.)

The TOC hierarchy is corrupted *only* for the chapters with four levels of heading.

Also, the incorrect hierarchy for the three chapters is identical regardless of how we create the WebHelp (Publishing from within FM from folders on a server, publishing from within FM from folders on a local hard drive, or by importing FM into RoboHelp).  In other words, the hierarchy is scrambled in the exact same way regardless of how we publish.

Hope that helps.

Tim

[TimLMun]

A couple of other notes.

First, the hierarchy is scrambled in the exact same way when publishing WebHelp from different computers.

Second, we read this article:

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2010/03/demystifying_mapping_filesettingisf_and_toc_generation.html

And based on the discussion in that article, we tried/verififed the following:

Heading 1 = Arial 16 point, bold, no indent.

Heading 2 = Arial 14 point, bold, .25" indent. (We tried both a tab indent, as well as specifying the indentation inches in the "Left" field in the paragraph designer.)

Heading 3 = Arial 12 point, bold, .50" indent.

Heading 4 = Arial 10 point, no bold, .75" indent.

We still have the problem I described in the original post.

The WebHelp TOC never scrambles H1 and H2, or H2 and H3.  However, it mixes up H3 and H4 in every chapter that has both.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You might also try creating matching heading styles (Heading1TOC, etc.) in RH and then map those in the Conversion Settings to the FM ones to see if it makes any difference.

You may end up just having to manipulate the RH ToC after the fact.

[David__D]

Well, 5 months on, I've run into the same problem. Not sure why these elementary things end up being so difficult. "Tech Communicator Suite 4" ...

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@David - I see you've created a new thread for this over in http://forums.adobe.com/message/5835991#5835991