RoboHelp 9 Won't Generate a Word Document

I'm trying to get RoboHelp 9 to generate a Word Document. It won't genterate and throws out the following message in output view:
Preparing to create Printed Documentation...
Clearing output folder...
Preparing files for Print Document...
Copying files...
Updating files...
Finished preparing in 4 seconds.
Preparing environment...
Cleaning up temporary files...
Internal error encountered, Failed to generate Printed Documentation.
This is all I have to go on. I really have no idea where to even start trouble shooting this as there isn't a specific error message.
Thanks!

Have you tried generating a word file from a different project? Try it on one of the sample projects. If it works, try to generate from your project but with a limited set of topics. If this works, there must be a topic that is causing the issue. If you add further topics a few at a time until you hit the issue you will be able to identify it.

Similar Messages

Unable to generate a Word document (RH9 and Office 2010)

Hello Everybody,
we have an issue with Robohelp 9 (patched to newest version). We are trying to generate a Word document (doc, docx) in the section of "Printed Documentation". If we click on the printed documentation on the left side (in the menübar), 2 popup windows flashing to the screen with the following complete message: "False Parameter". I can click on "OK" if i do it, both windows will close and the General Printed Document Page is loading.
The Problem is that all dropdown fields are blank and we cant chose .doc or .docx. I reinstalled both Programms (TCS and Office) it doesnt help me.
I have screenshoted and uploaded the blank Print Document General window at tinypic.
http://tinypic.com/r/t6drnn/5
Peter Grainge was asking me:
Also try with one of the sample projects. Click Open on the RoboHelp Starter page and then click Samples in the ribbon on the left. Same problem?
It doesnt work. (same problem)
Thx for help
Greetings Andreas B

This all points to some sort of installation issue. I notice from the screen you posted that a lot of the fields are completely blank. They shouldn't be. They should have default values. Check that you are installing following Peter's advice at http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/installing/installing.htm.
Colum

How do I generate a Word document and a PDF from Help files?

Hi,
I am new to RoboHelp HTML, and am using version 8. I updated some Help files, and now I want to generate output. Here are my questions/ or the process I used:
To compile the help, I clicked Generate Primary Layout. Is this correct? I noticed that the date stamp on the xpj file has not changed. The date is still from many months ago. (Why is that? Should it show a recent update date?) However, the files that I updated do reflect the dates when I made the updates. These include art files, an hhp, and htm, js, ldb, pss, cpd files.
To generate a pdf, I clicked Generate PDF. I was not able to generate the PDF at first, but then, I enabled macros in Word 2007 (Trust Center Settings > Enable all macros...and clicked the checkbox, Trust access to the VBA project object model), and clicked Generate PDF. At the end of the generation, I got this error in Word: Microsoft Office Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. The info you were working on might be lost. Word can try to recover it for you. I closed the dialog and Word generated several blank documents. Microsoft Office Diagnostics was run and found one problem and corrected it. Despite the error message, a pdf was generated. (If you could give me any insight on why I got the error messages, that could be helpful to know).
How do I generate a Word document?
Thank you!
Erin

Welcome to our community
Note that RoboHelp is capable of creating a variety of layouts. WebHelp, FlashHelp, AIR Help, Microsoft HTML Help, JavaHelp, Oracle Help, ePub and more.
Any of these layouts may be nominated as the Primary layout. So when you generate the Primary layout, you get whatever has been configured as the Primary layout.
Only certain actions will result in a change to the .XPJ file. The actions are indicative of major changes to the project. So I wouldn't fret the fact that the date time stamp wasn't updated.
Indeed the Printed Documentation Single Source Layout recipe is what you use to create PDF. Generally what happens is that RoboHelp creates a Microsoft Word document as an intermediate file type, then creates the PDF from that. As you might imagine, there are a host of things that can go wrong during the process. I might suggest that you first get a Word document to generate cleanly. Then once you do that, focus on PDF. I know that I typically gen a Word document and stop there. I just open Word and use Word to create the PDF.
If you look at the properties for the Printed Documentation Single Source Layout recipe (View > Pods > Single Source Layouts then right-click the Printed Documentation layout and choose Properties) you will see that PDF, Word or both are options at the top of the dialog.
Hopefully that gives you a nudge in the right direction.
My fellow Adobe Community Expert Peter Grainge has excellent info on Printed Documentation on his site at Grainge.org. Click the link below for that.
Click here to visit Peter's site
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
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Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training
SorcererStone Blog
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Generate a Word Document

Hi,
I want to generate a Word document and populate it with some values taken from my JAVA application.
Have you got any ideas on how to do this ?
Thanks a lot.

Yeh, sure!
Here are two methods that create and write a .txt file, or anything for that matter.
call them by using:
writeToFile("Hello World", "file.txt")If the file "file.txt" doesn't exist, it will be created by makeFile();
Hope this is of some help.
public void writeToFile(String text, String fileName) {
          File thisFile = new File(fileName);
          if(!thisFile.exists()) makeFile(fileName);// If the file doesn't exist, makeFile will be called
          try {
               FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(fileName);
               byte data[] = text.getBytes();
               fos.write(data);
               fos.close();
          } catch (IOException e) {
               System.out.println("Error while writing to File. ");
     public void makeFile(String fileName) {
          File file = new File(fileName);
          try {
               file.createNewFile();
          catch(IOException e) {
               System.out.println("ERROR while creating file. ");
     }I'm not being rude or anything, but could I get some Duke Dollars for this - it's just that I'm running a bit low and have just spent quite a bit of time on this. But if you can't, it's cool, I understand.
Thanks
izy_t

Generating Excel/Word Document with PHP/MySQL

Hi all,
I would like to know the best way I could create a Excel/WORD
document that can take the name, address, from my mailing list
table and use mail merge to print envelopes?
Any ideas? Or is there any software than can help me?
Thank you in advance

Luis Godinho Ramos wrote:
> SELECT *
> FROM produtos
> WHERE prod_modelo LIKE %colname% AND prod_funcao LIKE
%colname% AND
> prod_descricao LIKE % colname% AND prod_tags LIKE
%colname%
> ORDER BY prod_modelo ASC
The second example you give is closer, but you need to
enclose the query
fields in quotes and use OR rather than AND...
SELECT * FROM produtos WHERE prod_modelo LIKE '%colname%' OR
prod_funcao
LIKE '%colname%' OR prod_descricao LIKE '%colname%' OR
prod_tags LIKE
'%colname%' ORDER BY prod_modelo ASC
HTH,
Pete.
Peter Connolly
http://www.kpdirection.com
Utah

RoboHelp 9 not generating Word 2013 document

I am trying to generate a Word document (Word 2013) from RH9. It goes through the generation process and just before it would normally offer to view the result (the Word document) the following message appears:
'A supported version of Microsoft Word does not exist. Please install Microsoft Word 2000 or newer'
Any ideas greatly appreciated.

That will be because you are not using a supported version.
Rh11 is the only version that supports 2013. You may find that if you right click the print layout and select properties, then you will be able to generate but no other way will work. You will not be able to import Word documents.
You can have both 2010 and 2013 installed if you have the licences. Just run 2010 before using it with Rh.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Auto-generating word documents from word templates

How would one go about generating a word document based off of a word template (.dot)? For example, I have a simple JSP form which has a field "Last Name". When submitted, the "Last Name" is plugged into a corresponding bookmark in a .dot file. Then the .dot file is saved as a .doc file and presented to the user for download. So, breaking it down:
1. User fills out a jsp form with "Last Name" and hits the submit button
2. The submit button triggers a routine to:
a. open a .dot file on the server (static location)
b. find the bookmark where the last name should be plugged in
c. plugs the value of last name
d. saves the .dot as a word document
e. presents to the user for download
Has anyone done a similar thing before? Any pointers?

There's a lot of templating projects around that are usable in Java. I'm not aware of any that use closed proprietary technology like Word and I wouldn't base my design on that either. If you're stuck with that idea then I don't have any suggestions.

Headings are getting bookmarked while importing word document to Robohelp 9

HI everyone. Easter wishes in advance.
I have a problem while importing word document to Robohelp.
Version - MS Word 2010
Robohelp 9
While I import word document to Robohelp after mapping styles, my heading styles are getting tagged as bookmarks in RH.
I have customized word template along with customized RH css.
How can I prevent the headings (all the heading level used in a document) getting tagged as bookmark after I import word docs to RH.
If there is no solution is there any solution to remove bookmarks at one go from RH.
Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

The quickest way to resolve this is to create a new project and import a document that causes this problem. Zip up the project and document and send it to me via my site so that I can take a look.
You can strip out any confidential content and it only needs to be a document short enough to show the problem.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Infopath Multi Textbox and OpenXML to generate word document

Hi,
I'm reading multiple InfoPath Textbox (set to display multiple lines) using OpenXML and generating a word document based on a template collecting data from InfoPath. I'm using following code, the code gives error in
AddMultiLineText at Paragraph p = sdt.GetFirstChild<SdtContentBlock>().GetFirstChild<Paragraph>();
The code actually works when I use only one Multi Textbox but fails if its more than one. I'm quite new to Infopath and OpenXML, I would appreciate some help ASAP as its holding me in my project:
Event Receiver
public override void ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)
           try
               this.EventFiringEnabled = false;
               string siteUrl = properties.WebUrl;
               SPListItem item = properties.ListItem;
               SPWeb web = properties.Web;
               SPList lib = web.Lists["DocLib"];
               SPFile file = lib.RootFolder.Files["template.docx"];
               string generatedDoc = "";
               if (file != null)
                   byte[] templateBytes = file.OpenBinary();
                   using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
                       ms.Write(templateBytes, 0, (int)templateBytes.Length);
                       byte[] convertedDocBytes = ConvertInfoPathToWord(ms, item.File);
                       generatedDoc = item["LinkFilename"].ToString().Replace("xml", "docx");
                       SPFile newFile =
                         lib.RootFolder.Files.Add(generatedDoc, convertedDocBytes, true);
                       ms.Close();
private byte[] ConvertInfoPathToWord(MemoryStream ms, SPFile file)
           byte[] bytes = file.OpenBinary();
           using (MemoryStream msInternal = new MemoryStream(bytes))
               XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
               doc.Load(msInternal);
               XPathNavigator root = doc.CreateNavigator();
               root.MoveToFollowing(XPathNodeType.Element);
               string ns = root.GetNamespace("my");
               XmlNamespaceManager nsMgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(new NameTable());
               nsMgr.AddNamespace("my", ns);
                string multiLineText1 = root.SelectSingleNode(
                 "/my:myFields/my:field1", nsMgr).Value;
               string multiLineText2 = root.SelectSingleNode(
                 "/my:myFields/my:field2", nsMgr).Value;
                using (WordprocessingDocument myDoc =
                 WordprocessingDocument.Open(ms, true))
                   MainDocumentPart mainPart = myDoc.MainDocumentPart;
                   List<OpenXmlElement> sdtList = InfoPathToWord.GetContentControl(
                     mainPart.Document, "multilinetext1");
                   InfoPathToWord.AddMultiLineText(multiLineText1, ref sdtList);
                   List<OpenXmlElement> sdtList = InfoPathToWord.GetContentControl(
                     mainPart.Document, "multilinetext2");
                   InfoPathToWord.AddMultiLineText(multiLineText2, ref sdtList);
                    myDoc.Close();
               msInternal.Close();
           return ms.ToArray();
        public static List<OpenXmlElement> GetContentControl(
          Document doc, string name)
            List<OpenXmlElement> list = new List<OpenXmlElement>();
            List<SdtBlock> sdtList = doc.Descendants<SdtBlock>()
              .Where(s => name.Contains(s.SdtProperties.GetFirstChild<SdtAlias>()
              .Val.Value)).ToList();
            if (sdtList.Count == 0)
                List<SdtRun> sdtRunList = doc.Descendants<SdtRun>()
                  .Where(s => name.Contains(s.SdtProperties.GetFirstChild<SdtAlias>()
                  .Val.Value)).ToList();
                foreach (SdtRun sdt in sdtRunList)
                    list.Add(sdt);
            else
                foreach (SdtBlock sdt in sdtList)
                    list.Add(sdt);
            return list;
        public static void AddMultiLineText(
          string multiLineText, ref List<OpenXmlElement> sdtList)
            string[] lines = multiLineText.Split(new char[] { '\n' });
            if (sdtList.Count != 0)
                foreach (OpenXmlElement sdt in sdtList)
                    for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)
Paragraph p =
                          sdt.GetFirstChild<SdtContentBlock>().GetFirstChild<Paragraph>(); //this ERRORS
                        if (i == 0)
                            InfoPathToWord.WriteText(lines[i], ref p);
                        else
                            Paragraph pNext = sdt.AppendChild((Paragraph)p.Clone());
                            InfoPathToWord.WriteText(lines[i], ref pNext);

Additional Info: multiLineText1 and multiLineText2 are "Plain Text Content Control" in the word template used to create the word document.

Safari won't open word documents

Recently, Safari won't open any word documents or pdf. Any suggestions? The error message says there are no available programs to open it. Although Pages is installed.
Thanks!

Hi..
Quit Safari.
Go to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins
Move the Adobe PDF Browser plugin (or just PDF browser plugin) to the Trash.
Relaunch Safari. See if that made a difference.
Pages can open PDF files as a standalone, but not within Safari.

Regarding "Generate Word document"

Hi,
I have one layout of xml publisher. In the layout I have made the page setup as
Margins:
Top - 0.3 Bottom - 0.3
Left - 0.5 Right - 0.5
and in Layout tab I have
Header - 0.3 Footer - 0.3
I have attached this layout in the Templates tab of XML Publisher responsibility.
But when I am trying to Generate Word Document of my report, The layout and margins gets distorted.
The Margins change to
Top - 0.42 Bottom - 0.4
Left - 0.46 Right - 0.46
and in Layout tab I have
Header - 0.5 Footer - 0.5
Please help me out how can I control the header and footer of my report. Your ideas are welcome at [email protected]
Thanks.
Edited by: user5427917 on Nov 7, 2008 12:27 PM

How are you generating the Word documents, manually? I haven't used it, but it looks like docx4j might be good library for building the documents. General documentation can be found [here|http://dev.plutext.org/trac/docx4j/wiki], description of [Java API|http://dev.plutext.org/docx4j/javadoc-2.2.2/] and here's the [download|http://dev.plutext.org/docx4j/].
Cheers, harald

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

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.

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

Robohelp HTML 8 - Generating files with apostrophe in file name

Before I start, I have read this thread
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1062904#1062904 and several others, yet I still have questions.
Previously I used Robohelp 5x, which worked perfectly. Our user manuals are in MS Word and each have several topics that have apostrophes in the topic name (that are necessary in the topic). Robohelp 5x would import the Word Document without issue and create HTML files that automatically replaced the apostrophe with an underscore. All references (Index, TOC, etc) to those files also automatically changed to underscore.
Fast Forward to Robohelp 8.0.2 (yes, I have the update). Even if I go into the options and make sure "Use Underscores in file names" is selected - it no longer replaces the apostrophe with an underscore (though it does replace the spaces with underscores).
Locally, when I generate the online help (WebHelp) and put it on our local webserver - it works just fine. Even with the apostrophes in the file names and references.
However, when the WebHelp files are hosted at our server hosting facility, any links within the Webhelp to files with an apostrophe result in a 404 error. I have searched and searched to see if there is some kind of server setting to allow these special characters to be recognized in the file name but have not had any luck.
Per the link at the beginning of this post, the issue in that thread was resolved by changing the file name of the HTML files. I attempted to change the file name of the HTML files that RoboHelp created. However as far as I can tell there is no way to do this within RoboHelp 8. If I attempt to do it outside of RoboHelp 8, I need to import all of the "new" HTML files and all references (Table of Contents, Index, etc) now show broken links and need to be re-linked to this new topic. This is not an option. I have 12 user manuals that are updated on a regular basis and the renaming\relinking process would take forever.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-Noob

I was able to log into the server hosting facility and look at the html files themeslves.
It appears that at some point (between when I created them locally and now) all of the apostrophes in the file names were changed to "Æ". This blew my mind. And sure enough if I plug in the URL and replace the apostrophe with "Æ" the page shows up just fine.
From what I've been reading it looks like that may be related to the conversion from MS Word and "Smart Quotes". I'm looking into that now, but any help would still be great.
Thanks,
-noob

Missing images in Word Document

I am having a problem with some missing images when I
generate a Word document from RoboHelp HTML. I have seen similar
problems in these forums and have tried the solutions without
success. I have Word 2002 SP3. I have images in my document that
have conditional tags applied to them. Up until now, I have not had
any trouble with them generating in Word. I added some more images
(using RH to import them into my doc) and I set up the conditional
tags to print those and not the others. In some cases, the images
are generated and in others they are not. There is no X in its
place just a blank line. I have tried erasing the .CPD file and
re-generating. I have tried removing and re-inserting the image.
Also, if I generate the html web help, the images are all there. No
problem. I have tried embedding the images and using links and get
the same result. I have not tried to just generate the PDF because
I need to tweak the document in Word first before generating the
PDF to make everything look good.
I have also uninstalled and reinstalled Robohelp. That didn't
help either. The image properties all have none (not left or
right). I am running out of ideas to solve this problem. Everything
worked great before so I can't figure out what could possibly be
wrong especially since the webhelp is fine. I also tried moving the
project to my C drive. No change either. The project usually
resides on a network drive.
If anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it since I have a
document to print for a customer ASAP! Thank you in advance.
Evelyn

I have been suffering with this problem of missing graphics for some time, even with RoboHelp 8. However, it now seems that I have found the answer and just in case anyone else is still having this problem I thought I would share what worked for me.
After doing some Google searching I found the web site: http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_graphics.htm where the following solution was offered for problems with Mail Merge graphics:
"If you find that on merging to a new document the resulting paths have been changed to something like: {INCLUDEPICTURE"../,./../program%20files/My Program/ProductPictures/ImageName.jpg"\*MERGEFORMATINET} and the merge does not work correctly:-
(In Word 2003) Select Tools > Options > General > Web Options and uncheck "Update links on save""
Whatever this has to do with anything I do not know, but it magically fixed my problem and all images are now appearing in the RoboHelp Word output.
Cheers,
Chris

Can I generate separate Word docs and retain cross-references?

I've poked around the forum and am seeing an answer to this, so forgive me if it's already been answered.
I'd like to generate separate Word documents from within RH8 (as opposed to a single Word doc of the entire help system) and yet retain the functional cross-references across documents.
As it is, if I generate the help as a group of Word docs, only cross-references having destinations within the same Word document are present. That's not hugely surprising, but it would help me a great deal if intra-document cross-references were present in the generated Word docs.
Any ideas how I can do this?

I believe that might work if you used the master document method. That said I strongly recommend that you research Word's master document method as everything I have read indicates the Word gurus suggest it has problems.
Why would you want all these links working? If that is needed, shouldn't the user be accessing the online help?
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
Follow me @petergrainge

RoboHelp 9 Won't Generate a Word Document

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