HTML view changes – to &endash;

[Guest]

I just upgraded from RoboHelp 5 to version
7. I upgraded my projects. When I switch from the Design view to the HTML view (so I could see the HTML sytax), I see that the n-
dashes have been changed from – to &endash; . When I generate
the Web Help, the output files show a literal &endash (IE and
Firefox). So I did a search and replace on all topics to change them
all to – That worked. The problem is that anytime I go back to
the HTML view for a topic it immediately changes the n dashes back to
&endash . I beleive &endash; is valid XML but not HTML which makes me think I need to adjust a setting somewhere. I opened the sample projects, created an – and the same change occurred. Thanks for any assistance!

[NJV20]

I am having the same problem but mine also includes ’ turning into ’r;.

Displayed in the design screen it looks like this: ’r;User.Name’ when it should look like this: ‘User.Name’

[Guest]

thanks NJV20! I thought it was something I was doing - I have the same problem with the quotes. and the multi-file find and replace function doesn't find them, or at least it doesn't for me.

[Guest]

I stumbled upon the solution. In the Design view, I selected my n-dash, then clicked the Insert menu, selected HTML and then selected Symbol. When I went to the HTML view I discovered that RoboHELP had inserted the tag <symbol name="En Dash"><robohelp>&#8211;</robohelp> . The 8211 is a reference to the unicode character for the n-dash. I did a search and replace of all my topics to change &ndash; and &endash; to the RoboHelp tag <symbol name="En Dash"><robohelp>&#8211;</robohelp>. I had the same issue with the left quotes being converted to r;. If you view the HTML you will see that r; is being added to the right quote tag. To fix that, I replaced all instances of &rdquo; and &rdquo;r; and &ldquo; with a simple quote: &quot;.

[ginafromtampa]

I just noticed the same problem after upgrading my RoboHelp projects from RoboHelp X5 to RoboHelp 7 (&endash; and &rdquo; and &rdquo;r; showing up in the FlashHelp and printed docs). Could the people at RoboHelp please let us know that this is a Known Issue when upgrading! I'm thankful to zappy0 for posting the workaround, but it is definitely an awful bug.

[ginafromtampa]

I also found this in my output (FlashHelp and Word doc): &ldots; (which is an ellipses). I replaced it with <symbol name=Ellipsis style="font-weight: bold;"><robohelp>&#8230;</robohelp> (from selecting the ellipses in the design view (mine is bold so you may need to modify), then replacing it in RoboHelp with the Multi-File Find and Replace tool.

[ginafromtampa]

I'd say this is tantamount to corrupting my entire project. Here's another one: I'm finding this now in the text: "r;users;" which should be "users" without the two semi-colons. I sincerely hope this doesn't happen to anyone else who has upgraded a project from X5 to 7. I've spent an entire day going through hundreds of topics -- some I can fix with the multi-file find and replace too, others, like the one above, I have to manually fix. Adobe: this is making me 2 days late on a huge deadline

[Guest]

I feel your pain. Thanks for your tip on the ellipses. I did not even think to check those.

[ginafromtampa]

I had been working remotely when I upgraded my projects from X5 to 7 (via VPN to our Citrix server). I thought working over a network might have caused the problem. So I just tested upgrading the project just on my hard drive, and I'm still getting the same issues.

[Jared Hess]

I think this has something to do with converting projects from a previous version. I used to have RHX5 and then RH6 and never had these problems. But ever since upgrading from RH6 to RH7, these symbols, at least in my case, are displayed literally now in all my outputs. Unfortunately, some of these look fine inside the WYSIWYG editor (Design view) which makes them difficult to catch. (see Literally Displayed Characters in the code below).

There are likely others that I haven't caught.

How to fix them? Do a find and replace using a tool that allows you to search among multiple files in subdirectories. (I used FAR HTML to do this.) Replace all instances of the literally displayed characters with the code in RH Symbol Tags in the code below:


Hopefully Adobe patches RH 7 to fix this and other bugs.

[Peter Grainge]

Just to let you know that Adobe are aware of this.

[agolits]

Does anyone know when a patch for this bug would be available? For us it might be a deal breaker for RH7

[Peter Grainge]

Welcome to the forum

I'm trying to find out. I thought it was going to be in the patch that has just been released but it is not listed.

I'm not sure either if you can patch the trial version. Maybe you could try that if you are unable to wait while I enquire.

[agolits]

Peter,

I really appreciate your quick reply. Would you point me to the patch link? The only one I found was about one very specific security issue.

[Peter Grainge]

I've just had it confirmed this issue was fixed in the patch.

You have to open RH7 and go to Help | Updates. That's the bit I am not sure about, that you can update the trial version. I would expect a new version of the trial to become available but it might not be there yet.

[Peter Grainge]

I'm told the patch can be applied to the trial.

[agolits]

I successfully downloaded the patch to my trial RH7 version via Help/Updates and did some spot testing. The conversion issues have been fixed at least for rdquor, endash and ldots. I assume they have been fixed for other literal characters as well.
BTW, I had the same issue with literal characters when importing Microsoft Word documents. This has been fixed as well, both for .doc and .docx formats.

[TQA_DJ]

We ran the Help/Update patch, but the problem persists. Does anyone know of another approach?

[Jared Hess]

I think the patch fixes some of these but not all. I'm not entirely sure, but I seem to remember seeing this crop up in an RH project I created a few days ago by importing it from a generic .hhp project.

See my post above on finding and replacing your HTML code. That's what I would do if the patch doesn't seem to be fixing it.

[Peter Grainge]

The patch does not correct the problem after upgrading. What it does do is allow you to upgrade without the problem occurring.

Your options are to upgrade the project again after applying the patch OR use a Find and Replace tool.

[Mark_Skis]

In upgrading X5 projects to the trial version of RH7 the patch does work if the patch is loaded before the upgrade is completed as stated. However, if changes are made in the RH7 for Word project and that HPJ is imported to a RH7 web help project, the problem returns (We work with SMEs who prefer to use Word docs). BTW - During the HPJ import process you are prompted to use the existing XPJ - yes or no. We have tested both with the same result.

Also when using the Search function in the final web help project, there is an unlabeled check box below the text entry field. Is there a way to add a label to the check box?
Any suggestions are appreciated.

[KFTelser]

Another thing that RoboHelp 7 doesn't recognize is Word's "smart" [curved] quotes." RoboHelp gracefully accepts only straight quotation marks.

[NL_Derek-GsBV5a]

I also encountered this bug and found it quite unpleasant. The damage is done when you convert a project to Robohelp 7. When you migrate to RH7, be sure to update (Help > Update) before you open a project.

The update apparently includes a repair facility; if you open a "damaged" topic in Design (old WYSIWYG) the non-HTML tags like &endash; will be repaired but not saved; I carried out a null edit (space-backspace) to force a save.

To discover damaged topics you can use Multi-File Search and Replace if you know what tags to search for (as far as I know JaredHess's list is complete); or you can make a printed document of your entire project and search that for the ampersand (&).

[Guest]

This whole thing is getting pretty strange. I have RH7 and my project was converted from RH6. I am having trouble with quotes. I first noticed the problem when I generated an MS Word document and observed that the left quotes were showing up as "&rdquor;". After doing some research on the web, I discovered that the html escape sequence for left quote should be "&ldquo;". I then used the Multi-file Find and Replace and changed 255 instances of "&rdquor" to "&ldquo". If I look at a file containing left and right quotes in Notepad, the escape sequences are correct, i.e., "&ldquo" for left quote and "&rdquo" for right quote. However, if I open one of the files in the WYSIWYG editor in RH, it renders correctly, but when I switch to HTML view, the "&ldquo" has been replaced by "&rdquor".

I also tried doing Help > Updates and got no response.

This is very frustrating.

Bob Boller

[Newsgroup_User]

This whole thing is getting pretty strange. I have RH7 and my project was
converted from RH6. I am having trouble with quotes. I first noticed the
problem when I generated an MS Word document and observed that the left quotes
were showing up as "&rdquor;". After doing some research on the web, I
discovered that the html escape sequence for left quote should be "&ldquo;". I
then used the Multi-file Find and Replace and changed 255 instances of
"&rdquor" to "&ldquo". If I look at a file containing left and right quotes in
Notepad, the escape sequences are correct, i.e., "&ldquo" for left quote and
"&rdquo" for right quote. However, if I open one of the files in the WYSIWYG
editor in RH, it renders correctly, but when I switch to HTML view, the
"&ldquo" has been replaced by "&rdquor".

I also tried doing Help > Updates and got no response.

This is very frustrating.

Bob Boller