FM import to RH: lists

Question

Technical Communication Suite, RoboHelp HTML, WebHelp
I'm importing FM8 book into RH7 HTML.
I've done some research and I see that conversion of lists
between FM source files and RH HTML is very problematic. I'm
confused and haven't been able to resolve my particular problem
through research.
My FM bullet parragraph tag looks like:
Indent First: 18pt
Indent Left: 28pt
tab stop: 28pt L
Autonumber format:
\t
Everything lines up perfectly in FM and when saved as PDF.
When import to RH, I DO NOT select "Convert AutoNumber to
HTML list". In RH the first line is indented too much. The HTML
looks like this:
<p class=FM_Bullet>•<span style="font-family:
'Times New Roman'; font-size:
7.0pt;">   </span>
The three spaces (   ) indents too
much; two spaces (  ) not enough.
One solution I'm considering is to search for
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size:
7.0pt;">   </span>
And replace with:
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size:
13.0pt;"> </span>
Manipulating the font size of a single space gets me darn
close. However, this solution is inelegant, time consuming, and
possibly prone to error in a large document (I'm working with 300+
pages). And it doesn't work well with numbered lists that go into
double digets.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks,
Stan

Answer 1

If you have simple bullets and steps,
"Convert AutoNumber to HTML List" may work for you.
If you have nested lists (such as steps with bullets, bullets
with sub bullets)
the nested lists become entangled, and also tangle up
headings that follow, preventing topic breaks.
When you look at the HTML code, you can see the problems. The
</UL> (end of list) gets misplaced for the various nested
lists.
"Convert AutoNumber to HTML List" does not work for my
application.
darbyzz,
Here's what I did to make my bullets and steps work out.
- I did not use Convert AutoNumber to HTML List.
- I set up a secondary FM template, just for RoboHelp, and
use it just for my help files.
In this template, I don't use indents before the first level
bullets.
For second level lists, I use a format that includes an
empty place holder (as advised by Jain).
example: a:< ><a+>.\t
I also use a specific tag to reset a list to number 1 (I
found that was necessary).
- When mapping in RoboHelp, I left my first-level list tags
to Source,
- I map my second-level list tags to BodyLevel1, which, in
its default state,
is indented just enough for my needs.
This works pretty well for me, not perfectly, but I've
settled.