Can't generate PrintDoc

[AIR-Chayah]

System specs

• Windows 7 Experience SP1
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010
• Microsoft Word 14.0.7140.5002 (32-bit)
• RoboHelp 11.0.3.268

Is there a known limit to the number of topics that can be included when generating PrintedDoc?

I successfully generated a subset of my project last week and wanted to generate a Word version with all the topics included from the selected TOC. The dialog box reaches a point where it says "Processing topics" and the Output View just keeps saying "Saving 'Touchstone_Help_PrintedDoc.doc".

I tried generating using .doc as well as .docx.

I tried creating a new SSLs.

It's been almost two hours and I don't see completion in sight, and so was wondering whether I'd exceeded some limit.

Thanks for any assistance any of you can provide.

Carol

[Peter Grainge]

There is no defined limit and I have just created an 800 page document. Ridiculous I know but that's what the slavemaster wants.

How much memory does your machine have? That can affect things but I'm guessing it is something else.

Try splitting the layout into two halves so that half the topics are in one layout and half in another. Do both fail?

Are you trying to create a PDF at the same time?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[AIR-Chayah]

Good morning, Peter.

Thanks, as always, for your speedy reply.

My computer has eight GB of memory.

Additional project  information:

• 857 topics
• 112 snippets
• 123 PNG files
• One of the books that seems to cause PrintDoc failure when included in the Chapter layout colums has about 309 topics and 280 tables, with many hyperlinks in the tables.

The first layout, with all topics up through the book with 309 topics and 280 tables, just "failed" with an internal error (after PrintDoc forced a restart of Word). However, when I go to the SSLs folder and open the document, it's got 725 pages and appears to have all the content!

The second layout, with all topics after the book with 309 topics and 280 tables, has just given me the same errors. Interestingly, when I right-click the SSL in the Single Source Layouts pod, the message indicates that the output is not yet generated. However, again, when I go to the SSLs folder, the file is there and has all the right content.

(Yesterday, when the PrintDoc failed, there was content, but not TOC.)

When I generate the SSL with ALL the topics, it gets to updating list paragraphs, says it's "Saving", displays the Word error, and then just keeps processing and "saving" for a very long time (typically longer than an hour)  and then looping back to the Word error and "saving". It's 11:26 am. I'm off to lunch and will see what it's done when I return!

Carol 

[Peter Grainge]

Isn't it about time you got back from lunch?

What's the current status?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[AIR-Chayah]

Yes, back from lunch at my desk and now online with Adobe Support, who noted that he’d been reading your blog and saw that “someone” (me, I think) had gone back to 32-bit Word and solved the problem!

[AIR-Chayah]

Adobe Tech Support saw the same problem. They want me to send them the project, but my manager is concerned about doing that because the project has not been released. For now, we’ll have to live with generating Word ‘chunks’ rather than the whole project.

I talked with Kevin Siegel today at IconLogic. During the conversation, he suggested looking at the file names for possible corruption (we’d done this early on in the fall, but I will look at that again).

He also suggested creating a new project and importing all the files from the real project. I’m getting the same failure.

Hope you are well, Peter.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I’m pretty sure you can trust Adobe not to spill your project’s secrets ;>)

[Peter Grainge]

Carol

You can rely on Adobe, Kevin or myself not to reveal any information in the project but please just approach one of us rather than take time from all of us if you do share the project.

I had to smile when you pointed out that Adobe had looked at my site for solutions.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[AIR-Chayah]

Thanks, Peter.

I'm sure I can rely on all of you. Everyone's being super careful these days about security and confidentiality.

I've looked at all the file names in the project to make sure there were no special characters in the file names. I found a couple of PNGs with parentheses in the file name and one or two other file names that can be fixed. After doing that, I will try generating the whole project to PrintDoc again. That said, it seems odd that, if corrupt file names were the problem, I'd be able to generate both halves of the project without a problem, just not the whole project.

Yesterday afternoon I tried creating a new project and then importing the main project files into it. Ran into the same generation problems. (Unfortunately, I think I also broke links with Source Control, even though I was working locally in a new project. Today we had to create a brand new workspace and get a clean copy of the project.)

Should I fix the problem, I will share the information with all of you.

In addition, should we decide to share the project with any of you after product release, I promise to share only with one person.

Best regards and happy Friday.

Carol

[Peter Grainge]

Ask all of us if you want as long as we know that is what you have done. That way we can work together if needs be. The frustrating thing is to spend an hour or more on something just to find that someone else has resolved it and you didn't know because of time zone differences.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[AIR-Chayah]

Thanks, Peter. I will keep this mind! By the way, I tried to reply several times, but got error messages from the site. I finally logged out and logged in again. I guess the forum site doesn't really like when you stay logged in....

[AIR-Chayah]

Good afternoon from very snowy New England!

I cleaned up some file names with potentially problematic characters and tried to generate the PrintDoc again. Same results. RH tells you that it has failed to generate the Printed Documentation, but does in fact create the Word document, but without a TOC.

For now we'll live with the problem, since we only use the PrintDoc for review copies and can generate two separate documents by using two SSLs.

Thanks.

Carol