Hyperlinks in linked Word documents don't work

Hello All,
I'm having a problem with hyperlinks and I'm hoping you can help me. I have a RoboHelp HTML 8 project built out of Word 2007 linked files. There's a dozen Word files right now, but I'm hoping to scale up the project eventually. Each file is a topic in the CHM.
I have two problems when I generate the CHM:
1. Links to anchors within the same Word document generate extra subtopic files. Each extra topic begins at the anchor point. The links work, but I'd like to avoid having extra topics cluttering the TOC.
2. Links to anchors in other Word documents don't work at all. When I examine the HTML in Robohelp, I can see that RoboHelp has generated an empty link. When I link to a Word document without specifying an anchor point, the link in the CHM is to the document itself and not the topic, which is useless for my purposes.
For example, the generated HTML for each of these types of links looks like this:
<p>Link test: <a href="#_Using_Styles">Later in the same topic.</a></p> <== This one works, but generates an extra subtopic
<p>Link test: <a href="" target="_self">To another topic.</a></p> <== This one doesn't work at all.
Before you ask, yes, I have checked the "Convert References to Hyperlinks" box in the RoboHelp Word conversion settings. According to Adobe documentation, that's all I need to do... So what am I doing wrong?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions,
Susie

I have an update: Adobe got back to me and confirmed that the inter-document/inter-topic link issue is an actual RH
bug. I'll check back in here when I have more news.

Similar Messages

Losing hyperlinks when linking word documents

We use RoboHelp version 9.0
Project description
We have a Parent project with 7 child projects. Each child project has, on an average, 40 files.
The files in each child project are linked to word documents. Every time we have updates to content, we update the word file and click Update in RH project.
All the child projects are merged in the parent project via TOC.
On completion of updates in the individual projects, we generate the individual projects and then generate the parent project for final output.
Our project structure is like this, where each circle represents a folder.
The issue
The issue we face is about See also links.
Each word file in almost all projects has “See also” topics without links in the word document. However, we hyperlink them with .htm files (within the child project and between child projects) in RH.
Because the links are set in RH and the content updates are made in linked word files, whenever we modify the word files and update them in RH, the links are lost. We need to manually go to each file in RH and re-hyperlink them. Although we select the “Preserve modifications to this file” before we save in RH, the links are still lost.
In addition to losing the hyperlinks, a duplicate file gets created for each file in backend. We have to manually delete each file.
My questions
Are we doing something incorrect in this process? Losing links and file duplication - is this because of incorrect folder structure? Is there a way we can prevent it? We tried linking See also topics in word files itself, but since the hyperlinks have an absolute path and not relative path, we lose the links if the project is placed in another computer.
The total count of files in the complete project is around 500. We tried having a single project rather than merged projects. But we are not sure if we can multi-author a single project. We use SVN as a source control tool and apparently RH does not support it.
3. Is linking the word files the best practice? My organization insists on maintaining word documents.

According to this, Rh is compatible with SVN.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/robohelp/articles/robohelp_subversion.html
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Linked images in my Word document don't show up in RoboHelp

I'm using RoboHelp 8 and Microsoft Word 2003 on Windows XP. I create a new WebHelp project. I added all the .png image files from my Microsoft Word directory to Baggage Files. I then used the Link>>Word Document function to add my Word document to the RoboHelp project. Set my preferences for style pagination, did a Force Update All. However, most of the images I inserted as links into my Word document don't come through into RoboHelp. Apparently I'm missing a setting somewhere but I can't figure out what it is. In addition, one of the images that did come through is horribly degraded.

Still no joy. All of the images in my Word document are linked .png files.
Here's the step-by-step of what I just did:
Open Word document
Tools>>Options>>General>>Web Options.
Change setting. Click OK
Click OK
Change text on page one of document to make sure document is "dirty".
File>>Save As.
Increment number in file name.
File>>Exit.
Launch RoboHelp
Start new project
Add all .png files to baggage.
File>>Link>>Word Document
Select appropriate Word file.
File>>Project Settings>>Import tab
Edit Word conversion settings to set pagination for heading styles and set Convert Word list to RoboHelp list
Click OK
Click Apply
Click OK
Right-click Word document in HTML Files (Topics) and choose Update>>Force Update All
no joy

Custom URL links in PDF don't work.

I have registered custom xyz: protocol handler in Windows.
Creating a hyperlink in MS Word and clicking it works OK – my handler app gets invoked.
Saving Word document as PDF used to work (somewhat – by passing URL to the default browser).
Recently it stopped working altogether.
Questions: where should I look for recent changes? In registry? Some configuration / setting in Adobe Reader UI?
And most importantly – can I create a hyperlink to my custom protocol that will NOT involve the default browser (as Chrome, for example, gets lost)?

Here is what I do.
1. Register txt: protocol with Windows to open Notepad.exe, with this txt.reg file:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\txt]
@="URL:txt Protocol"
"URL Protocol"=""
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\txt\shell]
@="open"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\txt\shell\open]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\txt\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Windows\\System32\\notepad.exe\" \"%1\""
2. Create MS Word document with two hyperlinks:
yahoo – linked to http://www.yahoo.com/
txt – linked to txt://test
3. “Save as…” this document as PDF, default options.
After that, open saved PDF in Adobe Reader, click on each link.
Clicking “yahoo” opens your default browser and navigates to yahoo.com.
Clicking “txt” has no visible effect.
Expected: open Notebook.exe and attempt to open specified file.
Note: that txt link works OK if clicked in the Word.
Also, the custom links used to work in the past in Adobe Reader as well.
I am looking for two things:
1. What could I change in the process of saving PDF or in Adobe settings to make this work again?
2. Is there a way to specify hyperlink in PDF to a custom protocol handler and NOT have it go through the default browser?
Thank you,
Vlad

Can I apply one .css stylesheet to all of my linked word documents inside my RoboHelp8 HTML project?

Hello all,
I am on my fourthRoboHelp8 HTML project, after the other three crashed. I am a technical writer constructing my companies Policy and Procedures Guide. I am only 142 (word documents) and 9 (RoboHelp topics) into my project and there will be plenty more to come. I recently took Kevin Siegel's RoboHelp8 class where I determined that it would be best if I link all of my word documents inside of the Project Manager becuase I will be constantly updating these documents. I've searched around the Adobe Forums, talked to Kevin, and talked to my IT Department, but I cannot seem to find an answer for my problem.
I have linked all of 142 word documents inside of the Project Manager, and all 142 word documents have their own .css stylesheet. I have assigned the default.css stylesheet (which I have assigned all of the proper formatting to headings 1-4 to match headings 1-4 inside of my Microsoft Word 2007 documents) under Project Settings under the Import tab. I also assigned this default.css stylesheet under WebHelp Pro. My understanding with applying the default.css stylesheet to these two places is that all of my word documents and topics should have this stylesheet applied to them.
However, when I look at each individual linked word document the default stylesheet has not been assigned and the word document is still being dictated by its own stylesheet i.e. Credit.css. On my third project, before it crashed, I manually went through all 142 word documents in the Project Manager and assigned the default.css stylesheet to them. I did this by right clicking on the topic, under Appearance, I changed the stylesheet i.e. Credit.css to default.css and clicked apply. I was immediately prompted with the two options: "Preserve modifications to this file" or "Don't show me this message again." I tried both options. The first applied the default.css stylesheet and removed the Credit.css stylesheet, but when I made a change inside of my word document and updated it inside of the Project Manager none of my changes appeared. The second did not apply the default.css stylesheet and kept my Credit.css stylesheet applied to my word document. When I made a change inside of my word document and updated it inside of the Project Manager the change appeared.
I talked about this to Kevin and he said that the individual stylesheet applied to each linked word document did not mean anything, essentially that by making the default.css stylesheet the dominant stylesheet under Project Settings under Import that the stylesheet would be applied to all of my linked word documents/topics. He also suggested that I make a change to the stylesheet like change the color of Heading 1 and link a new word document to see if it applied the changes. I tried doing this inside of my third project, but nothing changed.
I would like to know if I can assign one stylesheet to all of my linked word documents before I get too far into the fourth project and have that project crash on me too. One of RoboHelp's appealing features is to apply one stylesheet to multiple topics, or in my case 142 word documents and 9 topics. I hope that I can apply one stylesheet to all of these linked word documents because having 142 individual stylesheets is unmanageable.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Roxxanne

When a word document is imported into RoboHelp project, RoboHelp generates a separate stylesheet for each word document as each word document may have its own formatting styles. In a generic scenario, word documents may be brought from different sources and may have different styling. Hence, RoboHelp allows users to preserve different styling through sepearate stylesheets.
However, for a different scenario like yours, RoboHelp allows users to override all the CSS and apply a single CSS to all the topics at the generation of output. As you have already mentioned that you have applied default.css in the WebHelp Pro SSL dialog, that should suffice and should meet your requirement of applying a single CSS to all the topics. You can verify the same at your end by linking few word files and generating the output with a single CSS applied in the SSL settings.
Mayank

Linking word document to report and refreshing

I'm looking to link word documents to a report. After changing the word documents I'm looking for a way to automatically refresh WITHOUT opening the report again.
I know this can be done if the report is opened after changing the word documents but I'm trying to find a way to do it without re-opening.
Is there a way?
Slim

Hi Slim,
If you are not refreshing your report, it will show only static information which is saved in your previous refresh. It is not possible to view changes without refreshing the report.
Thanks,
Sastry

Linking word documents and auto-updating TOCs?

Hi, all!
I know InDesign a bit, but am about to embark on a project that I could use some help on. Im compiling all the different writing Ive done in the past four years into a little ebook. There are about 50 different essays/articles, each under four categories in the table of contents. Many need editing, and the ebook will require lots of moving things around and editing.
So, is it possible to link Word documents like as you can do with images? I would like to have InDesign link to all the different word documents that comprise different essays, etc, so I can edit individual essays from Word and have them auto-update within InDesign. Also, is there a similar thing I can do with the table of contents, where it will automatically update the page number of a given entry when I rearrange it? These two things would save me much time!
Thank you!
Alec

As much as you think you want to auto-update the Word documents, you don't.
Yes, there is a way to link those Word files, but you will lose all formatting applied in ID each time you do update the linked files.
Why don't you just make those changes in InDesign?
Next, yes, you can create a TOC that will update page numbers automatically when the document(s) change.
That is no problem.

How can I have a topic name different than the filename of a linked Word document?

I've encountered multiple issues with linking to Word files ...here's another one: If a Word document is entitled Feature_ABC, then upon generating the HTM after linking it, the HTM's filename and topic name are both Feature_ABC. As underscores are ugly in topic names and features can be renamed, I would hope that I could rename the topic to be different than the filename.
The Help documentation suggests this is possible by editing the Topic Name Pattern in the Word Conversion Settings dialog of Project Settings. However, reagardless of the Pattern entered, every time I generate or update from the context menu of a linked Word document the topic name remains the same as the filename.
Because the topic name is shown in the Search panel and browser tabs, it will be a little ugly and may even be confusing. It is possible to edit the HTML directly, but then the HTML is overwritten each time the Word documents are update and the great advantage of using linked documents is lost.
Is there a way to solve this problem?
Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide.

Thank you for your quick reply - just checked Multifox out.
It seems it still forces me to open a new window, while preventing the need for a new profile.
Why isn't it in the addons.mozilla.org ? Looks dangerous ...

Generate topics from a linked Word document failes

RH 9: Every time I try to generate topics from a linked Word document, RH failes and has to be shut. How do I solve this problem? or is this a bug in the application?

There is no Conversion Settings screen. Here are the steps I took:
1. Created a new RH9 project.
2. Right-clicked in the Project Manager and selected "Link | Word Document." (The message "scanning" appeared and then the MS Word document I selected appeared as an MSWord doc in the project folder.)
3. Once all editing was finalized, I right-clicked on the MSWord doc in the Project Manager and selected "Update."
There was no Conversion Settings screen. The MSWord doc now appeared as a single HTML topic in Project Manager.

RH11 "messes up" hyperlinks set in a linked word document

Hello Adobe Community,
I am having some troubles with RH11, importing Word-Docs and generating html code. The problem is the following:
There is a word document "text1.docx" with some hyperlinks in it, which navigate to a certain html file in the RH output. Let me be a bit more precise:
-I have two word documents: text1.docx (containing hyperlinks) and text2.docx (content unimportant)
-Now I am importing both docx-files to RH but to different working folders so they appear in different folders in the RH output:
create folder "folder1" in RH and import text1.docx into folder1
create folder "folder2" in RH and import text2.docx into folder2
-Now I am generating the output and the structure is the following:
... !SSL! --> Output --> folder1 --> text1.htm
                            --> folder2 --> text2.htm
                            --> index.htm
                            --> other files
Because I know what the output structure will look like I set a hyperlink in "text1.docx" which navigates to the "text2.htm" file. The hyperlink looks like this: "../folder2/text2.htm"
Somehow in the process RH "messes up" this link and replaces the relative part of the path with its temporary working directory. So after the process the link is not "../folder2/text2.htm" but "//file:/c:/Users/User1/AppData/Local/Temp/folder2/text2.htm". I think it is obvious that this link will not work. How do I manage it to tell RH not to change any part of the hyperlinks and just copy-paste it into the html file.
I do not want to be rude, but I do not want to read anything about my approach and that it is not best practice etc.. Because we have approx. 500 documents with many hyperlinks of this type it is neither an option change the links within the word documents nor to manually edit them in RH.
The past years we used a workaround with GREP to replace the wrong links with correct ones, but a solution within RH would be more comfortable.
I hope you can help me :-)
Best regards from Germany

The problem is that Rh accepts what it is given by Word. Part of the import process is to first let Word convert the file to HTML format and Rh has to let Word do that. Word writes the link in the format you see.
Add in that when you import document 1, there is no document 2 to give Rh a chance.
Maybe someone at Adobe can figure out a solution as you are not the first person to flag this issue. Add your voice the chorus. Please follow this link.
http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Hyperlink in MS Word document to Oracle Portal 9.0.4 form does not work

Hi,
In a MS Word document a link to a Oracle Portal 9.0.4 form is written this way:
http://myserver/pls/portal/PORTAL.wwa_app_module.link?p_arg_names=_moduleid&p_arg_values=47602092358
When clicking on the link, and at the same time holding the Ctrl-button, an error is displayed
Error: An unexpected error occurred: ORA-01403: no data found (WWV-16016)
and the URL is changed to
http://myserver/pls/portal/PORTAL.wwa_app_module.show?p_sessionid=248080&p_header=true
But if the hyperlink is copy/pasted from the Word document to the addressline of any browser, the form is opened without problems.
Any proposals how to write hyperlink in MS Word to Portal forms will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Arne

hi frank,
the new version of the RTE is only available from 9.0.4.1 onwards. it is not available in 9.0.2.x.
we have a white paper on OTN:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/portal/pdf/cm_rte_9041_features.pdf
regards,
christian

Link to external Word document does not work (in RoboHelp 8)

I am trying to insert a link to an external MS Word document (.doc) from HTML help (.chm) using RoboHelp for Word (version 8). When I compiled in WinHelp 2000 format, I used the EF macro to do this. We converted our Help project format and now the EF macro doesn’t work when compiling HTML Help. Is there a way to do this?
By the way, I need to stick with using RoboHelp for Word. Although I’d prefer to use RoboHelp HTML, my help project won’t convert correctly to RoboHelp HTML.

First of all, is it just this one project that has a problem compiling? Can you compile one of the tutorial projects? If so I think this may require a bit of dectective work to see what is causing the issue. Take a copy of your project. Now delete half the topics and see if it compiles. If it does, add some more content and compile again. If it doesn't compile, compile the other half. As a result of these actions (and by repeating) you'll be able to narrow down what the issue is.
Read the RoboColum(n) for mutterings on RoboHelp, Technical Communication Suite and technical communication.

Import of Word Document is not working

Hello, I wanted to import a word document but it is not
working. Draging droping is not working (just puts me link) and
through the menu (File > Import > Word Document ... ) is not
working.
Does somebody knows why.
Here is an image:
Image
Dreamweaver Menu

Good catch! Thanks, Alan.
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.projectseven.com/go
- DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs,
Tutorials & Resources
==================
"Alan" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:C5B334E2.31EDC9%[email protected]..
> your first screenshot-
>
>
http://www.janik.cc/b/dreamweaver-word-im.jpg
>
> shows an icon in the bottom bar for OpenOffice.
>
> Does that machine have Word installed?
> Dreamweaver doesn't import the .doc file directly, it
uses part of Word to
> do it. If Word is not installed, the Word import into
dreamweaver will not
> work.
>
> --
> Alan
> Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver
>
>
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
>
>
>

Links in PDF don't work on Mac conversion?

I am working with Word 2011 on a Mac.
My document has linked TOC and many internal links and cross references.
When I convert to PDF, NONE of the work, whether I use "Save As PDF," Distiller, or Acrobat XI Pro...
Is this a known limitation?
Is there ANY workaround?
Or is Windows my only option to make the links in my PDF work the same as in my Word document?

If you use the MS add on for saving to PDF you might get the links. I use a PC, but as I understand it the PDF Maker that adds the links does not work on the MAC and never has. One MAC user (Phillip Jones) typically drops by and provides some insight into methods for getting the links, but I don't remember the solution (probably because I did not totally understand the solution as a PC user).

Visio drawings embedded in Word documents don't convert correctly

Hi,
Windows XP, with all available patches.
Word 2007, with all available patches.
Visio 2002, with all available patches.
Acrobat X pro (trial at this point) with all available patches.
I have some long word documents that have many visio drawings embedded within them. When I try and convert the word document to a pdf using the Adobe Acrobat tab that gets installed within Word, I find that the document gets converted without any errors, but when I view the document, some of the Visio drawings are not displayed correctly. In particular, the arrows at the ends of many of the connectors are missing.
Is this a known problem? Is there a reasonable workaround available?
I have tried severl other PDF creators and they work with no problem - the Adobe Acrobat is the only converter I have tried that exhibits this behaviour, and at the moment it is preventing me from buying the full version.
Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Hi ,
If you look down the reply typing section you will find 'Attach Files' box . You can attach the files there , much like I have done in my previous post .
If you cannot still do that you may go to acrobat.com ,create a free account (if you don't have already) and upload the files to your account and pass on the Link to the files here on the forums .
Let me know in case of any issues .
Thanks,
Apoorv

Hyperlinks in linked Word documents don't work

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for