RH9 - Can not create ANY links in linked Word documents ;-(

Question

Ok, this does not make sense:
- From RH9, create a fresh empty project
- Create two word files "Topic1.docx" and "Topic2.docx"
- Put "Link Here" in each document
- Save the documents
- From Project Manager, Project Files, link both documents, generate, update all, etc.
- Now create hyperlinks in each topic, pointing to the other topic using default topic editor in RH9
- Save All and Generate the WebHelp project and test the links are there and work.
- Now open and edit both word documents in word. Add some text to each and save
- In RH9 Project Manager, Project files, Update All and open the topics in RH9 default editor
Walla, the full text is there, the LINKS are gone. Actually, I understand that this is how it works, but the BIG problem is that links to bookmarks, other topics, links to outside resources created in RH9 Default Editor cannot be preserved when the related/linked document is edited in Word. AND, you cannot create ANY of these links in the Word documents. So, you have a help system that has really nice update features when an author makes a change to a document, but NO LINKS. Updating a linked document will DELETE ANY changes made within the RH9 Default Editor.
Does this make any sense? Has my brain fallen down? Is there another workflow option?
Thanks for any help
Lyle
Hummmmm, NO POPUPs, mini TOCs or See Also Keywords, Link Controls, etc. etc. etc.

Answer 1

I have been observing this thread and wanted to just chip in to remove some misnomers,
1. If you create any hyperlink from any MS Word document (say Doc1) to another MS Word document (say Doc2) and you import the original document (Doc1) then it brings its reference (that is the word document Doc2) as baggage in the RoboHelp project and the hyperlink is not created to the html file generated for the word document Doc2 (linked or imported seprately).
     thus if you click the hyperlink in RoboHelp it should open the word document Doc 2 (that was brought into the project as baggage)
2. If word "conversion setting" alone are modified (like the settings “convert references to hyperlinks”) then at times the mapping fails to work, in such scenarios just go to the conversion settings dialog of FrameMaker and modify multiple “other settings” (it won’t impact your word conversion mapping.) Now any conversion settings applied for word will work.
            Hence the “convert references to hyperlinks” is working but you need to update any FrameMaker conversion settings to get it working
@ Lyle – as now the flow must be clearer so I would give you a suggestion to merge all the word documents that you want to work with and use cross-references to places you want to have hyperlinks and use the option to “convert references to hyperlinks” in RoboHelp.and keep all the authoring in word document so that nothing is lost on update.
NB – There is a method to create intra document cross references in MS Word
In FrameMaker the concept of book gives it a sense of collection and thus cross references across FM documents inside a book are converted easily but in Word there is no way to group word documents and thus it is not possible to convert any spatial hyperlinks from one document to another.
Hope this helps
Ashish