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Importing Word Documents into RoboHelp Classic Versions |
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This page is about the screens you will encounter when importing Word documents into RoboHelp 9.0.2 and above up to and including RoboHelp 2019 Classic.
If your are using RoboHelp 9, it is vital that Service Release 9.0.2 is applied to your machine as that updated the process in important ways. What is described below will not work unless that service release is applied.
If after following these instructions you still do not get the expected import, take a look at Importing Word Documents.
The process for RoboHelp 9 is the same for RoboHelp 10 and above except that in later versions you will be given the option during the import to automap the styles. RoboHelp will then match any Word styles with identical style names found in your CSS.
I recommend that you
do not import Word documents into your carefully crafted main
project. Import them into a project set up just for the purposes of
importing.
- If it goes well,
then import the htm files created into your main project. If losing
the Word TOC or Index is a problem, repeat the process importing
into your main project knowing it will not be spoiled.
- If you have problems
then nothing is lost, just trash the temporary project and start
again.
If you intend to create
printed documentation from your project later, try it early on as
problems from the import can manifest themselves there. Leave it
until later and you may not make the connection between the import
and the problem.
The import process will be smoother if you first prepare the Word document, it is reliant on a properly constructed Word file and the old rule of "rubbish in, rubbish out" certainly applies here. RoboHelp is having to convert the document from Microsoft's file formats into HTML, think along the lines of mixing oil and water. Use Word to save the document in HTML format and you will see the HTML is not pure HTML and that is what RoboHelp has to deal with. So what do you need to do?
I will describe the process with a document created from a clean template (a minimal number of styles). See Downloads below if you want to test with the same document. It is short but it contains the following features:
If the objective is to get the topics created from
the import to look the same as existing topics in the project, you
will want to use your own CSS. See Step 7 below before you start
importing.
If the objective is to retain the appearance of the document, ignore
the mapping process described in Editing the Word Conversion Settings.
The Content Settings dialog will be displayed.
Figure 1
There is a gotcha in the process. Let's say you use an ISF file by browsing to it as shown in Figure 2, then you change the settings and export those settings overwriting the original. When you next import a document, it will still show the same ISF filename so you will likely think RoboHelp will use the settings you exported. Wrong! RoboHelp is simply displaying the last file you used but unless you browse to the file again, it will use the settings that were defined at the start of the previous import, not what you exported.
See Post Import after the next section.
When you click the Edit button on the Import page, RoboHelp will scan the document and then display the Conversion Settings window.
In the screenshot below, the number of paragraph styles is minimal because I worked with a clean document. The importance of this is described above in Before You Start.
Figure 3
The settings are described in detail below. The details are important!
Setting |
Field |
Description |
Paragraph |
RoboHelp Style |
If left as Source, RoboHelp will create a class in the CSS that will have definitions written by RoboHelp so that the topics created will look the same as they did in Word. Instead you can use the dropdown to select a style from the CSS that RoboHelp is going to use during this import. That is where I hit a gotcha with the import process. This is the first import so there are no saved ISF files and the supplied ISF file does not allow you to change the CSS file that will be used so you cannot see your styles. There are two options.
So back to mapping now that you can see the styles you want.
29 Apr 2014 If you use the Rh Style Mapping CSS, you will not see Normal in the RoboHelp styles dropdown. You can either edit that file and add a <p> style to it or use your own CSS. |
Glossary Definition |
Tick if this style is to be used for glossary definitions. |
|
Glossary Term |
Tick if this style is to be used for glossary terms. |
|
Pagination |
If this field is ticked, RoboHelp will start a new topic each time it finds the style in Word. |
|
User Defined HTML Tag |
This field will mostly be used when importing FrameMaker documents that also use this screen. Ignore it when importing from Word. |
|
Character |
Select the character style to map to. It will list the same styles as in the Paragraph field. Mapping here is only required if you have used a style as a character style in Word. If in doubt, apply the same mapping as for Paragraphs. |
|
Table |
If you want your Word tables to map to a table in your CSS, select the required style. If you want your table to be 100% in RoboHelp, it must be set to 100% in Word. Just because it fills the page width in Word does not mean the table is set to 100%, check the tables properties in Word. |
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Other
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Auto-create CSS styles from Inline Formatting |
See RoboHelp's online help. |
Convert References to Hyperlinks |
Word can contain references and hyperlinks. RoboHelp understands hyperlinks so this option allows you to convert the references. |
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Convert Header |
Tick if you want any Word header converted to a header in your topic. |
|
Convert Footer |
Tick if you want any Word footer converted to a header in your topic. |
|
Convert Word List To |
Select HTML List to convert any lists in Word to standard <li> tags. Select RoboHelp List to convert any lists in Word to multi-level lists in RoboHelp. Note that the generated CSS will contain multi-level list styles for ALL lists that are in the Word document but only use them if this option is set to RoboHelp List. My import document contained only two single level list styles and and I chose the Select HTML List option. Thus while the CSS created contained 13 multi level lists, they were not used with this option. Some minor numbering format and list indentation issues were corrected when I applied my own CSS. |
|
Context Sensitive Help Marker |
This field can be used for both importing and linking although it is perhaps more useful with linking. It enables you to set up a marker so that map ids are created "automatically".
WordBefore you start, you have to decide how the pagination will be set in RoboHelp. For the purposes of this explanation, we will assume it will be based on each Heading 1. Against each Heading 1, enter a footnote. Go to the first Heading 1. It is important that you click where shown below.
This will bring up the dialog shown here. Enter a marker that will be used for each topic.
When you click Insert, Word will show the footnote area with just your marker. Add whatever you want for that footnote. Move to the next header and repeat the above process adding different text for each topic that will be imported or linked. What you enter here, will be the ID. Save the document. RoboHelpIn RoboHelp, make sure your pagination setting is for Heading 1, or the same as you have set up in Word, and that this field is set to the same marker, PG in this example. **************************************** If importing, look in All Map IDs and you will the map ids set up. If linking, this will appear when you update. |
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Topic Name Pattern |
This allows you to define how the filenames are generated. See RoboHelp's help for the detail. Figure 4 |
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Use only ASCII generated characters in generated filenames |
I recommend ticking this to avoid problems later. |
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Select |
UPDATE 10 March 2018. Last year Paul Hanson sent me a screenshot showing some fields that neither of us could get to appear again. Paul just emailed me again showing an option which if selected revealed those fields. This time his screenshot was taken before he had selected his CSS and the wording shown below made me realise what the trigger was, importing more than one document at the same time. You will only see this field if you are attempting to import more than one document at a time but it has a potentially huge benefit. When you click the dropdown, you will see various options including your existing CSS file. When you select one of the options, other self evident fields will appear.
Are there any downsides?
SummaryI think it basically comes down to how consistent you want your topics to be. If you edit an original topic it will be fine but it will not be 100% the same as an import. That said, the differences seem to be with lists and not unacceptable. If you just want a quick import that looks good and does not need editing or outputting again as a document for editing by someone using it as the basis for say a training manual, then this seems to be a good method. If your findings are different, please see the Contact page on this site and let me know. |
If you do not use the Select option above, then it is important to understand that RoboHelp will create a CSS for the import of each document. Not using the option above, I mapped the styles to my own pg_std.css, RoboHelp has created its own CSS (For902ImportTests.CSS) as shown in Figure 4. It does this in case the document contains styles that have not been defined in the CSS used for mapping. I would prefer that it linked to the CSS I defined as any errors caused by me in not ensuring the styles exist are mine to fix but that's the way it is.
Figure 4
With Service Release 902 applied, in most respects the import was what I wanted. The lists were indented a little further than expected and the font for the numbering was not the same as in Word. The indent and the numbering were corrected as soon as I applied my CSS file, also included in the zip file that you can download from the link below. If your CSS does not correct the lists, you will probably just need to modify the <ol>, <ul>, and <li> tags.
Post import I took the following steps
Meta tag |
RoboHelp has always created the following meta tag when importing. <meta name="OriginalFile" content="ForImportTests.doc" /> It seems to do no harm in online help but I have seen it cause problems with printed documentation. I suggest you remove it. |
Internal (Embedded) style sheet |
You will find an internal style sheet in each topic created. You need to delete it as otherwise it will override anything defined in the external CSS used for the topic. Typically you will see blue for unvisited links and purple for visited links. The style will be something like this. <style type="text/css">/*<![CDATA[*/ As the string is multi-line you will need to use a tool such as FAR as RoboHelp's Find and Replace in Files (up to Rh9) will not find strings that are split across lines. If you don't have too many topics you can do this in the HTML view of each topic. Rh10 and above will find strings across multiple lines but see the Archive topics as there is a bug in the Must Include option. There is an alternative solution if you have control of the documents being imported and better still, their templates.
When you import, the internal style sheet will still be there but it will not need to be removed as the colours will be the same as in the CSS. |
If you didn't map your tables during the import or want to change the style you mapped to, it is easy to fix them in RoboHelp.
The books will be based on Heading 1 styles with links to the topics. Any Heading 2 will then appear as a topic within the book. If you do not want the books to be linked and prefer the topics to be listed below the book, you will need to amend what RoboHelp has created. What RoboHelp has done is not wrong, it is simply one way of creating a TOC and it may not be your way.
RoboHelp also created a topic showing the TOC in Word. I'm not sure that anyone would want that as well but it is easily deleted.
If you see lots of inline styling that does not look right, particularly if it contains MS indicating a Word style, select all the content (CTRL + A) and go to the Edit menu, Character section. Click the Clear Formatting icon. That removes all inline formatting. Obviously you will need to check the topic to ensure the CSS styles are what you want. One way is put the cursor at the top of the topic and keep pressing the Down arrow. If the style shows in the Edit ribbon in upper case, it means the style applied is not in the CSS file.
ISF stands for Import Settings File. When you export the settings as covered in Step 10 of The Process, those settings are saved in an ISF file. The zip file you can download below also contains the ISF file that I used.
Click here to download the document I used for importing, the ISF file used and the CSS file.
If you find the information and tutorials on my site save you time figuring it out for yourself and help improve what you produce, please consider making a small donation.
Date |
Changes to this page |
31 Jan 2020 |
Amended to show only applicable to Classic versions. |
17 Jun 2019 |
Amended to cover applicable RoboHelp versions. |
27 Apr 2018 |
Link to forum post added. |
10 Mar 2018 |
Using your pre-existing CSS added. |
26 Sep 2017 |
In Post Import section, tip added to remove inline style created during import. |
06 Feb 2017 |
Topic reviewed and amended to remove content related to older versions of RoboHelp. Any screenshots may differ in your version of RoboHelp but the functionality is the same. Temporary update removed. The change was reversed in a patch. |
03 Sep 2016 |
Temporary update re changes in RoboHelp 2015. |
29 Apr 2014 |
Note added re mapping to Normal (Editing the Word Conversion Settings) |
14 Jan 2014 |
Minor revisions to reflect this topic covers Version 9, 10 and now 11. |
23 Dec 2013 |
How to prevent Word converting PNG images to JPG added in Before You Start. |
27 Apr 2013 |
Alternative to removing inline formatting added. |
15 Mar 2013 |
Instructions for removing inline formatting amended. |
31 Dec 2012 |
Before You Start amended to cover Allow PNG being document specific. |
23 Nov 2012 |
Amended to cover RoboHelp 10 as well. Automapping added to process. |
12 Mar 2012 |
Editing the Word Conversion Settings amended to describe revised steps for get lists to import cleanly. |
12 Dec 2011 |
New topic |