Print Issues

Cause

Description

When you import topics from a Word document into RH HTML, the html code you get is bloated. This causes all sorts of problems and the sort of thing that goes wrong is covered in Importing Word Documents. There I explain how I clean up any Word documents that I have to import. There is a good illustration of the bloated html code that Word produces on the Engineering Network Services web site which reinforces what the above topic says.

One poster sent me a copy of their project where various topics were in the print layout but not the final document. Eventually I identified the cause. I found variations of <![if !supportEmptyParas]> in topics preceeding the missing topics. That is something that Word generates when creating an html version of a doc file. After removing all instances, the topics all printed fine.

Remember, this will be found in topics other than those that do not print. It may also be found in the non printing topics. Below are the variations I found, you may find others.

The real answer is clean up your code after importing from Word. Otherwise you never know when it will bite back and it may be so long afterwards that it is the last thing you think of.

<![if !supportEmptyParas]>

<![if !supportEmptyParas]><![endif]>

<![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;

<![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]>

If the print layout has a build expression applied, then the topics excluded by that expression simply will not print. You can include them in the layout by using the Show All Topics check box, but they will not print.

At first it may seem silly to allow you to include topics that cannot be printed but it is actually very useful. The idea is that you have the ability to define one layout and then choose to run it with or without the build expression. With the build expression applied you get the short version, without it you get the full version.

See the full topic on Printed Output.

Over the years and in the various incarnations of the forum, there have been lots of posts where the cause has been running the project across a network. Put the project on the hard disk and it works as intended.

Often when this is stated on the forum, someone will say "I've had my projects on a network drive for years and not had any trouble". You can play Russian Roulette and win some real big money but eventually that bullet is going to get you.

It amuses me that sometimes those who defend this are the very people having a problem.

Note that I am not referring here to projects under source control on a network, that is totally different.

Occasionally people report that they get a Malformed Topics message and no content appears or they get some duplicated topics but not the whole layout.

Initially the reported problems were resolved by using the supplied Style Mapping template instead of the user's own template, even though no fault could be found with the user's own template. I would just add that I automatically now suggest using the supplied Style Mapping template as it fixes so many problems that get reported. Back up the supplied template as a precaution and then edit to suit your needs.

In one case though even using the Style Mapping template did not resolve the problem. Here I found that by changing the CSS file attached to all the topics, the problem was solved. The CSS file used had a gif image for bullet points and that seems to have been the problem. Using a copy of your project, it is worth changing the CSS file used to one of the supplied CSS files that has not been modified in any way to see if that fixes the problem.

I also ran into the problem and found that the paragraph after a bookmarked heading contained the following code:
<p style="mso-bookmark: REQ_Requisitions_Link_Menu;">
That looks like something from Microsoft Word and when I removed it, the document was generated without problems.

Update: I encountered this problem again using Adobe RH7 but none of the fixes here worked. By applying the Output view, I noticed that the problem started at a particular point and then continued. When I deleted all the topics after that point, it was OK. Then I generated another layout starting with all the topics after that point. Suddenly they started working but again it reached a point further on where the problem occurred again. This was beginning to look like a resource issue so I put the project on a much more powerful machine with 3gb of ram and it generated perfectly, all 1,500 pages!

Look for a closing bracket without an opening bracket, specifically } without {

Amanda Herndon had a number of documents in her main project but the topics from one would not print. The same occurred when she imported the document into a brand new project.

After an hour or so of fiddling around I finally got it to print when I deleted some topics. Further poking around identified the problem was down to one topic. Remove the content and it printed fine. Paste that content into another topic and again it would not print. So it had to be content rather than the topic. Then I spotted that one of the images had no opening bracket. Correct that and it was all OK!

The reference was bmct IMG00024.bmp} instead of {bmct IMG00024.bmp}

After adding the information above, I realised it tied in with another problem I had seen some time back. Stephen Su was beaten for a while by a combination of characters in the text in his RoboHelp for Word project. By gradually removing content from a copy of the project, Stephen found it was choking when it hit the string
The statement will terminate with "}"
As soon as he removed that, the printed output generated!

Cause

Description

You will notice this cause is also listed under Missing Topics as it can cause both problems. What happens here is that the document starts to print normally but after a number of topics are generated correctly, it then reverts to the start of the layout, duplicates some topics and then stops.

The cause is the same, there is something in the style sheet that causes to generation to fail to work properly.

To find out if this is the cause is quite easy. Take a copy of your project using Windows Explorer. Using the copy apply a completely different style sheet to all topics. Generate again and if the problem has gone away, you know the cause.

To find out which particular style is the cause is more time consuming than difficult.

1. Have you got an older copy of the style sheet? Does it make any difference? What are the differences between the old and new version?
2. Gradually import into the temporary style sheet the individual styles from the one causing the problem and keep generating documents until the problem comes back.

Issue

Description

Cannot find Microsoft Word installed on your system

Was Snippet 7

RoboHelp 7 Problem

If you get this message in RoboHelp 7, please email me requesting MPJ2DOC.ZIP.

The file contains a replacement DLL that should be saved to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 7\RoboHTML assuming you used the default installation. Rename the old file first.

Open Office Conflict

David Channon posted that he could generate printed documentation from RoboHelp for Word but if he tried from RoboHelp HTML, he got a message "Cannot find Microsoft Word installed on your system".

The problem turned out to be not the fact that David had Open Office installed but the way in which it was installed.

When installing OpenOffice there is an option to automatically open doc files in OpenOffice. If that option is selected during installation, the problem that David encountered arises. My first thought was that this was simply because doc files had been associated with OpenOffice. However, changing those and dot files back to Word did not solve the problem. You have to uninstall OpenOffice and reinstall it making sure the option is not selected. Then RH HTML generates the printed output without problems.

For anyone who does not frequently generate printed output, I suspect you could install OpenOffice with the option deselected and then use Windows Explorer to associate doc files with OpenOffice, changing that to Word when required. Not tested.

Citrix

Lola Little posted an entirely different reason

"I am on a machine that was set up to conenct to Citrix to access MS Word. As a test I dropped a Word file on my desktop - I clicked to open it and it goes through Citrix instead of using the local copy of Word- so it makes sense the RoboHelp wouldn't be able to find my local copy of Word. I'm in the process of working with my sys admin to look into this further.

Update- the sys admin disabled the citrix agent - the citrix icon no longer appears in the system tray. This also causes the .DOC extenstion to be associated with the local copy for Word instead of the Citrix copy. Next he rebuilt my profile. Works now!"

R Kohler posted that images were not appearing in their printed document and nothing here had helped. Later they posted:

I discovered that the images that were missing in the printed doc were surrounded by H3 tags instead of P tags. I replaced the H3 tags with P tags and now all the images show up in the printed doc.

Worth checking out.

James Skaggs reported:

There is a fix on the Adobe Web site for printed documentation issues whereby several DOT files must be updated to resolve issues related to the generation of printed documents. The description of the fix does NOT specifically state that it fixes this particular problem, but it
does...

As it turned out, I had installed this fix several months back . My co- worker did not. Consequently, the project generated documentation fine on my machine, but my co-worker was getting the boxes with the red X for every image in the document.

As soon as I applied the printed documentation patch and overwrote the old DOT files in RoboHelp on her workstation, she was able to generate the printed documentation, and the images showed up just fine.

Peter Grainge Note: These patches are for X5.

Another cause can be after you have imported a Word document. Word puts the images in a sub-folder but that does not get created in RoboHelp. Look at your project in Windows Explorer and verify the images are in such a sub-folder. In RoboHelp, right-click the topic and select New | Folder. Create a folder with exactly the same name as in Windows Explorer. You will see the images getting added to the folder and you can leave them there or move them.

Missing images in output to Word 2003

Was Snippet 18

Carey Gibson emailed me that left and right aligned images did not display in her Word 2003 document. I tested using RH X5 and Word XP and found no problem so I sent the project to Carey. She tested again and that established the problem only exists when the output is to Word 2003. Also it does not affect images that do not have specific alignment set.

Carey advised Macromedia and they replied saying they are aware of the problem. The workaround was to use the Link to File option rather than embedding the images. That does have the downside that if the document is distributed, the images have to go with it making a PDF file the only alternative.

Then Eileen Suszek came up with this neat idea.

1. Create the document in RoboHelp and choose the "Link to Document" check box.
2. In Word click Edit | Links.
3. In the dialog select all the files.
4. Tick the "Save pictures in Document" check box.
5. Click OK.

This problem is fixed in Adobe RH7 with update 7.01.001 applied.

Printed documentation error messages

Was Snippet 26

If you get one of the first three messages below, you could try reducing your security level to Medium (In Word, go to Tools | Options | Security | Macro Security). Obviously you must only do that if permitted by your company's policies.

If that fails or you get the other messages, this link might be worth a try for X5 users.

1. The file contains macros with an expired or revoked signature.? Since you are running under High Security Level, these macros will be disabled.
2. The macros in this project are disabled. Please refer to the online help or documentation of the host application to determine how to enable macros.
3. The Word VBA macro version registered is incorrect. Please reinstall printed documentation.
4. Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
5. Unable to generate Printed Documentation. Please contact technical support.

Problems creating WinHelp or printed output in X5 from a project created in Version 9.1 or 9.2?

Was Snippet 16

This item did link to a thread on Adobe's site but it seems to have been removed. Unfortunately I have no details but have left this item in. It may help someone at least identify with the cause and then they can contact Adobe Technical Support who should still have details.

RoboHelp Explorer cannot start Word

Was Snippet 31

A number of people have reported this problem on the forum. See the technote at http://www.macromedia.com/go/rb_100001

The topic may not appear to relate to this issue but forum members have been advised by Macromedia to follow this procedure when they get this message.

1. Macromedia state (21/06/2005)

2. Open Word and choose the TOOLS menu

3. Choose "Templates and Addins"

4. Highlight PDFMaker.dot under "Global templates ad add-ins"

5. Choose the "REMOVE" button

Your project should open normally.

Mike Walsh reported this problem even though Word has been used. He found opening a RoboHelp for Word project fixed it. Seems like a missing registry entry that opening RoboHelp for Word fixed.

It can also occur when your IT department has set up your profile on a network drive. Olaf found a solution for this problem. In Word > Tools > Options > File Locations he changed the location for the "user templates" and "startup" to a folder he created as c:\robohelp\startup. Then he copied the RoboHelp Templates (PrintDoc.dot, Style Mapping.dot and RoboHook.wll) to the new "startup" folder and started Word so that the RoboHelp templates were active.
Next he started RoboHelp HTML and tried to generate printed documentation. For a short time he saw a message "waiting for register VBA macros" and then the printed documentation worked. Finally he changed the path back to the original roaming profile folders and the printed documentation still worked.

Hadjira posted on the RoboHelp forum working with Word 2003 the printed output wasn't created properly. The created file only contained topic titles and instead of text there was a message "No Data".

After investigation Hadjira found the cause. "In one of my projects containing two Word documents, one was printed fine and the second was not. After a long research I found out the difference between those documents: in the second one, the option "automatically update document styles" was activated in the menu Tools - Templates and Add-Ins. I switched the automatic template update off and it worked fine.

When RoboHelp generates printed output, it sends tables to Word as the defined width unless that width is greater than the width between the margins. Then it does the following:

If there are no merged cells, the table is scaled to fit the width between the margins.

If there are merged cells, the table does not get scaled and overruns the margins.

Issue

Description

Nested Tables

One poster was unable to generate a document even after going through all the options listed elsewhere in this topic. The cause was eventually tracked down to some nested tables and once these were removed, the document could be generated.

This does not mean that you cannot nest tables and print, just that if you have a problem, then consider this as a cause. You might be luckier.

Virus Checkers

Check your anti-virus program settings.

Norton:

Norton has a script blocking feature that can be set to Stop All Suspicious Activities. After changing that to Ask Me What To Do, and authorising RoboHelp's scripts, another poster was able to generate printed documentation.

McAfee:

Craig Clarke posted the following:

This is a specific problem with Robohelp and McAfee when trying to generate printed output.

1. Open McAfee Security Centre.
2. Got to the Virus Scan tab.
3. Click on the Configure Virus Scan Options link.
4. On the Active Sheild tab there is an 'Advanced' button right at the bottom of the window.
5. Click on the Advanced button.
6. Click on Exploits
7. Uncheck the Enable Script Stopper checkbox.

I have found no other suitable way to do this with McAfee and spent hours fiddling around with options. Just adding robohtml.exe to the trusted applications did not work. Personally, I only uncheck this option when creating printed output as it obviously compromises security. I've had similar problems with other Help Authoring Tools when generating printed output and I suspect it is to do with the integration with Word.

This can occur if you have used more than one style sheet in your online help and they have different definitions for say the <p> tag and then you map to a Word template. You have effectively told it to use the style in the template rather than the source and there is only one version of the style there.

I found this using RoboHelp 7 whereas I had not had the problem before. Some borders were double thickness in the printed output while others were missing. In the online help, there was no traceable problem.

The cure seemed to be removing two meta tags. The topic had been created from a Word import and these two tags had been added by RoboHelp:

<meta name=Originator content=ImportDoc>

<meta name=OriginalFile content="filename.doc">

As soon as I removed those tags and generated again, the problem had gone.

I later found that viewing a document with the problem in Word 2007 cured it. Open the same document in Word 2003 and the problem was still there.