Problems Generating Print Docs

[sjderrick]

this is the first time I've tried to generate printed docs. I'm not trying to produce a deliverable, just get a printed copy of all the topics. I'm not making many changes in the Printed Doc wizard. I've tried the option to generate an individual document and the generate multiple documents (with Create Master Document). In both cases, the included topic is added twice. Generating an individual document includes only the first topic in the topic list. It's in there twice, but only the one topic.

I made no changes to the second or third page of the wizard. For my current purposes, format and structure of the doc do not matter.

Has anyone seen this behavior before? Any suggestions on how to correct the problem?

Thank you.

Sally

[Peter Grainge]

Take a look at the Printed Documentation topic on my site and Print Issues. It sounds like perhaps you have a topic linked to a book and have the topic in your print layout as well.

[sjderrick]

Thanks for the reply, Peter.

I looked at your site, which suggests trying a different style sheet. I am using the default style sheet and haven't created another. In your response you mentioned a topic linked to a book and also included in the print. As my brain said 'hmmmm?' I verified that the books in my project TOC do not have topics linked to them. Is that what you were referring to?

Sally

[Peter Grainge]

By default, do you mean Style Mapping? That is a supplied template.

Yes I was referring to a topic being linked to a book and being included in its own right.

Try right clicking on single source layouts and creating a new print layout.

Are you using RH for Word or RH HTML and which version?

Stick with the single document option while fixing this.

[sjderrick]

I am using RH HTML 6.0.

The Style Sheet folder includes only default.css.

I created a new print layout. I gave it a name, let it go to the default location, and verified that it was set to create a single document. No other changes in the wizard. This time I got the first topic in the TOC (last time was the first topic in the list of topics), the full contents of the first book in the TOC, and a repeat of the full contents of the first book.

Sally

[Peter Grainge]

No I am not talking about the css style sheet, I am talking about the template you select in the last page of the wizard.

I'm about to close down here (UK based) and I may be offline for a couple of days. Post back and I'll pick up with you later.

[sjderrick]

Hi, Peter. I too was offline for a few days.

During my initial attempts last week, the style sheet was at the default setting, "None - Use the projects CSS settings." I just tried changing it to the .dot file we use here. You should know, however, that we do VERY little styling in RH. We have defined bullet element and a defined note element. Everything else is out-of-the-box RH.

Changing to our .dot file did not change the results. I still have the first topic in the TOC, the full contents of the first book in the TOC, and a repeat of the full contents of the first book. They just look a little different now. 🙂

Sally

[Peter Grainge]

I did suggest using Style Mapping, not one of your own templates and I did that for a reason, it does sometimes fix things.

How big is your project zipped up and are you able to send it? Don't send it yet though. Just answer those questions for now.

[sjderrick]

Tried it with the Style Mapping too. Same result. The zipped file is 2.2MB.

[Peter Grainge]

OK email it via my site. It may be a few days before I can look at it as I will be away from base. Send it asap though.

[maniac9999]

sj,

When you said "defined bullets" do you mean that you created a custom bullet image that you called from the stylesheet or that you customized the bullets or numbering (through the stylesheet) in any way?

That might be your problem. For our JavaHelp output (produced with RoboHelp HTML (version X5), we made a call to a bullet gif image (we got the image from Sun) in the stylesheet, since the default JavaHelp bullet is quite ugly and large. This customized bullet looks great in JavaHelp, but unfortunately, we kept getting duplicate topics when we tried to generate printed documentation. Also, RoboHelp X5 never produced the entire build as printed documentation - it would "cut off" after a randomly chosen topic that contained bullets or numbers.

The only way around it that we found was to a) limit the number of times that we generated a printed version for this JavaHelp project and b), when it is necessary to generate the printed doc, make a copy of the project, edit the stylesheet in an HTML editor to remove the bullet gif reference, save the stylesheet, then regenerate the printed doc through RH. Then don't forget to "trash" the copy of the project, since you don't want to continue using it as your "working" copy.

Hope this helps,
Jim

[sjderrick]

This is exactly what Peter and I were just investigating. We do use a gif for our bullets.

[Peter Grainge]

Jim

I had identified for Sally that the problem is demonstrably her style sheet as when I generate using another style sheet, it works OK. However, just one topic would make the generation fall over so a limit will not work.

If it is just the reference to the gif, why not just comment that out of the style sheet? Is there some other factor here?