Autonumber formats change after topics are linked across projects

Question

We are going from Robohelp HTML x5.0.2 to Robohelp HTML 8.0.2.208, so there is obviously a huge learning curve that we are working through.  We generate to WebHelp and merge 15 projects into a published master.  Our users view the output on our intranet using Internet Explorer 7.
We loved the autonumber format feature in version 8 (particularly the additional bullet styles available and no longer needing to manually renumber steps when something was inserted or deleted), but have run into a problem.
The autonumber items work fine in the projects and when generated and published into the merged master, but when we need to add a link from a topic in one project to a topic in another project it changes the bullets and numbering.
Example: 
We have a topic in Project A that references a topic in Project B (both projects are part of the merged master).
We insert a link in the Project A topic to the topic in Project B (using Insert Hyperlink - Link To - File).  Everything in both A and B look fine at this point.
We preview the topic Project A by clicking on "View Selected Item" (eyeglasses) and then click on the link we inserted to validate it works.  This causes the topic in project B to now have stutter-text for bullets and numbers (i.e., what used to say "1. Step" now says "1. 1. Step").  As more links are added to that topic, it adds more bullets and numbers to the linked topic:
1.     1.     1.     Procedure
●       ●       ●       Bullet
o       o       o       Bullet2
§        §        §        Bullet3
□       □       □       Bullet4
This does not happen when adding links to topics that are in the same project, only when linking to topics that are in another project.
All of our topics are created directly in RoboHelp; we do not import files from Word, FrameMaker, etc.  Each of our projects has the same style sheet (we created 1 CSS file and copied it into each project so that they were all identical).
All of our version 8 projects were created from scratch in version 8, and we have been importing our version 5 topics one by one (and deleting the version 5 styles assigned to them), then applying the applicable version 8 style to each line.  We have attempted creating brand new topics in version 8 to make sure no old legacy version 5 code imported from an old project was causing the issue, and it still happens.  We have tried manually cleaning up the HTML code for the topic and it happens again once a cross-project link is added back to that topic.  We also tried the "Convert RoboHelp edited topics to HTML" to try to get around the XHTML restrictions and it still happened to everything that was an autonumber format, so it appears the issue is something with that one of these.  We created styles for each autonumber format we wanted to use (using the options available for Paragraph styles in the Robohelp Style editor), this is a sample of one of them:
p.Bullet {
                list-style: rh-list;
                x-list-class: rl-p-Bullet;
                x-list-level: 1;
rh-list.rl-p-Bullet {
                x-level-count: 1;
                x-lvl-1-format: "<x>";
                x-lvl-1-type: disc;
While it would be really great to have the additional features of the autonumber format, it may not be a viable option for us since it is only available on the paragraph level and Robohelp 8 does not appear to play well with bullets and numbers in anything other than the list level.  I'm thinking I may need to abandon our current style sheet that uses autonumbering and start over with a new style sheet using only the limited bullets and numbering available on the list level (or possibly go old-school and just use the bullet and number toolbar buttons to add formatting to normal text).  We are about 8,000 topics into our conversion of 40,000.  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

Answer 1

I'd love to send you the test projects I set up, but unfortunately my company has blocked that ability.  I created brand new blank projects in Robohelp 8 using the default style sheet with an autonumber bullet and numbered step added and nothing else.  I thought this bare-minimum approach would be the best way to make sure it wasn't something we had set up incorrectly that on our end.  I used the default First Topics in each project and added numbered and bullet texts using the style sheet to Project 1 and then added a link to that topic in Project 2.  I didn't even generate the projects and I still had the issue when I previewed the Project 2 topic and clicked the link.
I've attached a copy of the info on the topic in Project 1 and the code behind the scenes for it below:
First Topic
1.     1.     1.     Procedure
o       o       o       Bullet
o       o       o       Bullet
2.     2.     2.     Procedure
Code before link in Project 2:
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Procedure" ?><p class="Procedure">Procedure</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Bullet" ?><p class="Bullet">Bullet</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Bullet" ?><p class="Bullet">Bullet</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Procedure" ?><p class="Procedure">Procedure</p><?rh-list_end ?>
</body>
</html>
Code after link in Project 2 was added and clicked:
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Procedure" ?><p class="Procedure">1.<span
style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Procedure</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Bullet" ?><p class="Bullet"><span
style="font-family: 'Courier New';">o</span><span style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Bullet</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Bullet" ?><p class="Bullet"><span
style="font-family: 'Courier New';">o</span><span style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Bullet</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Procedure" ?><p class="Procedure">2.<span
style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Procedure
Code after link in Project 2 clicked a second time:
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Procedure" ?><p class="Procedure">1.<span
style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>1.<span
style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Procedure</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Bullet" ?><p class="Bullet"><span
style="font-family: 'Courier New';">o</span><span style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span><span
style="font-family: 'Courier New';">o</span><span style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Bullet</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Bullet" ?><p class="Bullet"><span
style="font-family: 'Courier New';">o</span><span style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span><span
style="font-family: 'Courier New';">o</span><span style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Bullet</p><?rh-list_end ?>
<?rh-list_start level="1" an="1" class="rl-p-Procedure" ?><p class="Procedure">2.<span
style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>2.<span
style="font: 6.0pt 'Times New Roman';">&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</span>Procedure
Logically there is no reason that clicking on a link that is outside of the project should be able to recode the topic being displayed, but it is.