RoboHelp 9 re: firefox seeing this: 

Question

We assumed that upgrading to RoboHelp 9 would resolve this squiggle issue when trying to view in Firefox:    We have the same trouble in this new version of RH9. I called adobe support and they seem to confirm there is an issue, but did not offer a fix.
We heard there was a encoder tool for RH 8, is this available for RH9?  In Single Source Layout of RH9 there is a choice to make a Encoding selection and we have selected Unicode(UTF-8), but after publishing still see:   in firefox.  There  is not a choice for unchecking a check box for BOM that was discussed in a thread about the encoder tool for RH8.  Is this BOM the missing link?
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thank you.

Answer 1

When you select something other than UTF-8, SOME output, not all, still contains the BOM. I did not say the setting was completely ignored, just largely ignored. Actually this is slightly more annoying than if it were completely ignored because a quick check on HTML files shows it gone. However it is left in some files. Specifically .js and .css files. This may be why the search function faile in Opera, but that is another matter.
The UTF-8 BOM is specifically not required, especially where the UTF-8 identity immediately follows. Files are assumed to be UTF-8 unless specifically identified otherwise. The UTF-16 BOM is therefore required; the UTF-8 is NOT.
The reason some do not like the 'workaround' of making allowances on the server for incorrect RoboHelp output, may be that not everyone has the luxury of making fundamental changes to server configuration and re-booting the server in order to fix what should not be broken. Many small organisations rely on remote hosting companies and such changes followed by system re-boots are not a simple matter for them. With Linux-based servers being dominant on the Internet and Apache being the dominant server configuration, this problem will become more important as Microsoft rapidly loses its browser dominance. The only broswer to handle default RohoHelp8 + output is MSIE.
If there is indeed a product download that overcomes the problem and allows the option of leaving off the rule-breaking UTF-8 BOM from output, I would appreciate finding it. As it is I am forced to re-edit every file with a W3C complient Hex-editor to take out the offending six bytes from each compilation. A task that takes longer than the original compilation, and so wastes valuable human time when there are upwards of 1000 files involved. I assume that because it fixes a critical product fault, it is a free download?