RoboHelp 9 - link to PDF

[salcar1]

I'm trying to create a link to a PDF that I have added to a baggage file in RoboHelp 9. I drag and drop the baggage file into my help topic, but when I generate the help file (WebHelp) the link doesn't work. It doesn't seem to be related to security settings on my computer in IE11, since I tried it out on other computers and it doesn't work there either.

I'd really appreciate some help in figuring out what I'm doing wrong, since I'd like to link to several PDFs in my help project and open them in a new window.

Thanks,

Sally C.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Sally

Are you testing after uploading to a server? Or are you testing locally?

If it's from a server, you should investigate the naming of the PDF and the link pointing to it.

Cheers... Rick

[salcar1]

Hi Rick,

I have tried both on my local machine and a separate server. I renamed the PDF so that there are only alphanumeric characters and started from scratch to add it to the baggage file and drag and drop it into a topic. After the project is generated, when I click the link it "bounces" and appears like it's being clicked, but nothing happens. I'm using RH 9.0.2.

Thanks,

Sally

[salcar1]

I should add, too, that I'm able to get .swf files to work in the project, but for some reason both .doc/.docx and PDF files won't open. Thanks for any light you can shed on this issue

[salcar1]

Um, OK. I started hacking around and finally found a reference to "Mark of the Web" which was enabled. I disabled it and stuff seems to work. But now I'm curious - what is it and why is it enabled by default?

[Captiv8r · Accepted solution]

Mark Of The Web (MOTW) is an option that is designed to allow content to display in the browser. It's IE specific.

When you generate WebHelp, the "recipe" used (found in your "recipe box" or the Single Source Layouts pod" determines how WebHelp behaves. Depending on the selections made for your WebHelp recipe, there are different bits of JavaScript that are added to each of the HTML pages that end up in the output. MOTW will cause one additional line of code to be added.

When the Microsoft IE browser loads a page from the local file system (anything beginning with a drive letter) it will normally balk at things such as JavaScript because they are deemed to be a security risk. MOTW is designed to prevent that from happening.

The down side is that links to things such as Word documents or PDF documents will not work.

Normally, once you copy the WebHelp to a web server (NOT a network server) these links then work fine.

See, when a Web server presents the content, it ends up in the Temporary Internet Files location. And by default, that location is "safe", because the operating system has walls around it that prevent content from accessing your local file system. If the content were allowed to access the local file system, they could do some pretty nasty things to you.

Cheers... Rick

[salcar1]

Thanks for your help!