Word output troubleshooting

TCS 3.5 (RH9), source in FrameMaker, trying to generate Word output, Word 2010, macros enabled. It's a large project, PDF's around 1,000 pages. Generation stalls / hangs about 80% of the way through with no message. Occasionally I get a message from Word that it's trying to recover my document, but that's not when it hangs.
Same project exports fine to WebHelp.
Same installation generates Word fine from sample project.
Tried both .doc and .docx, same results.
I suspect there's an issue in the source, but it's hard to guess where. Is there a log file or something I can look at to see where it's hanging?

Sometimes the Output View will tell you the process is hanging after a particular topic so it can be useful, depends on the cause.
I think the reason Generate Individual Documents is working is because it is breaking the output down into bite size chunks. As I indicated, the size of the document you were creating was large and the process of converting from HTML to Word is very resource hungry. At that level it will kill pretty much any PC. Did you assume the process had hung or did you look at Task Manager. Often a PC will report something is not responding whereas Task Manager will say otherwise.
At some point it might be worth letting the process run overnight.
If single documents suit your needs then all is well but often they are not what people want. You can either recombine those documents or just generate a few documents and then merge those, if you have too many single documents to recombine.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Similar Messages

Word outputting nothing

So I have this strange problem, would be really grateful if someone could give me a little help...
So I have this project that is constantly being updated, and every time it is updated, the whole thing has to change (so the project itself is basicaly just a template). So everytime it has to change, I copy the old files into a folder called "old", tag it as NOT_FOR-PRINT then start again. i am sure there is a more elegant way of doing this but for now I have to carry on what the old guy was doing until I have time to change everything.
Anyway this project has two outputs, a webhelp and a word doc - The webhelp is generating fine but the Word output is just completely blank. I think I have checked every condition tag and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be generating anything...
Does anybody have any thoughts on things to try? I've checked the source files and the TOC. Doesn't seem to be any errant condition tags - what is the next thing to check?
Thanks in advance...

Have you updated the properties for the Printed Document (Word) output?
On the second page of the Printed Documentation wizard, be sure to remove all of old topics from the Chapter Layout window on the right. Then, add all of the the new topics in your TOC. Only those topics that are listed in the Chapter Layout will appear in the printed document.

Some images don't transfer from RH8 to the Word output

Why is it that some images don't transfer from the RH8 file to my Word output when I generate?
They do transfer to the Flash Help, but not to Word.
Some of them are small images - just shots of icons or tools - and others are quite a bit larger.
It takes me at least another hour to format the Word document after the output.

Hi Patti,
I have had similar problems of images "softly and suddenly vanishing away" during export from RoboHelp to Word. I never really solved the problem, but I did find some useful tips.
First you shouldn't embed your images; in the Printed Documentation Wizard you should select "Link to sub-directory"
This has the advantage that lost images are now replaced by a small red cross -- easier to find when reviewing.
Next, in Word, try Edit>Links. If you are lucky you will see something like this:
Notice that some links have a Source File of ../Images; they are the ones I was missing. For some reason the path to the image file is moved up one level.
I never found out why, but the workaround was simple: copy the entire Images directory and paste it one level higher in the directory hierarchy. A waste of disk space, to be sure, but it worked. The grabs above show Word2003 and RH8.
Hope this helps,
--- Derek

Dynamic Hyperlink not working in word output

Hi,
I am trying to add employee's mail id as a hyperlink in word output file but it is not working. In the link it is appending the path of server directory where file is getting exported. Please help me with this issue as i am not sure where i am making mistake in the code.
<?variable@incontext:e;.//fields/field[label=’Email’]/value?><fo:basic-link external-destination="{$e}" color="blue" text-decoration="underline"><?$e?></fo:basic-link>
Thanks and regards,
Aditya

ok
<?variable@incontext:e;VAL?>
<fo:basic-link external-destination="mailto:{$e}" color="blue" text-decoration="underline"><?$e?></fo:basic-link>works for me
may be "<?variable@incontext:e;.//fields/field[label=’Email’]/value?>" wrong?
so post sample xml

Review Comments in Word output

Hi,
My reviewer do not have access to RoboHelp instead reviews the Word output. The comments that I add for my reviewer are not getting generated in the Word Output?
I user RH version 9.
Can you please assist me?

We seem to be back to square one. You cannot create a Word document from the Review options so what is it that you are doing that creates a Word document?
As far as how comments should work with a PDF Review is concerned I am, as stated above, trying to get clarification from Adobe.
If you cannot wait for that, then there is a different approach but you will lose the ability for your reviewers to make changes in a PDF that can be imported. Changes are not the same thing as comments.
What you do is create a character style in both Rh and Word. I suggest you base the style on Normal and just change the font colour to something that stands out, Shocking Pink works. It's important that your create a character style rather than a paragraph style as that let's you insert comments within a paragraph. Then you create a Word document using Printed Documentation and map the two styles.
You will also need to create a build tag and apply it to those comments so that you can generate outputs with or without the comments.
I would suggest you also preface each comment with three hash symbols ### so that you can search any output to make sure nothing has creapt into an output that should not be there.
Having generated a document, your SMEs can make changes but you will have to identify those changes and make them manually in the help.
Once you have set it up and educated the SMEs, is not as bad as it may sound.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Topics in TOC are not being published in Word output

Windows 7
RoboHelp 9.0.2.271
Word 2010
I am having an on again/off again problem with RH not publishing all topics.
The topics are in the RH TOC and when I double-click them while in RH, they open for editing.
However, when I publish these same topics, they are not in the Word document--although they are in the web help.
Previous fixes include rebuilding the TOC (groan) or finding that rogue piece of code that causes topics not to print in Word or web help.
Question 1: Does anyone know why this is happening?
Question 2: Short of manually comparing RH TOCs against Word and web help (for 13 books), does anyone have any ideas on how to ensure all topics are included in the output?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Mary

There's a common misconception that what is in your TOC gets published.
The TOC is used the first time you generate a printed document. Thereafter, there is no update for good reason, you may want different topics. To update to what is in the TOC you need to click the Left arrow to clear everything from the right pane, then click the right arrow to put the new version of the TOC across to the right.
If you look at the current version of the TOC you will see some books on the left are not highlighted. That indicates there are topics in that book that are not on the right.
See Printed Documentation on my site.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

There's really no way to suppress headers and footers in Word output?

Says here that there's nothing you can do to suppress the headers and footers RoboHelp adds to Word / PDF output. Is that really true?
http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/printing/rh9_printing.htm

If Peter says it is true, it is. It is easily resolved though with some easy post production edits. Peter even gives you a process that he follows on that page.

Word output from smartform

Moved to correct forum
Hi,
Is there any way to convert a smartform output to a word document? The document contains some graphics, lines and table objects in it. Do you have any suggestions about it?
Edited by: Matt on Apr 15, 2009 8:45 AM

Hi,
It can only be done to a certain level.
You cannot transfer the formatting etc. Only the text.....
So don't bother. Use a PDF. They can be change/edited easily and they look fantastic.
See the [link |http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/27/67443cc0063415e10000000a11405a/content.htm]
Let me know if you need any further help...
Thank you,
Anupama.

Need to have Word output from WebHelp

My business is trying to create a word document from a
WebHelp file. We have extracted the project from the server but
can't get the project to open in RoboHelp. The orginal file was
created in RoboHelp X3 and we currently have version 7. Can you
please tell me how to get the project back into RoboHelp so we can
output the project to a Word document?

Hi there awarg
What would be best case is for you to find the actual source
files. But if you don't have those handy, this is the second best
option. Follow the link below:
Click
here to read the article
Cheers and good luck! Rick

Word output aborts partway through

I have a project that I have been maintaining for a number of
years, beginning in RH3 and now in RHX5. I can successfully produce
HTML Help and WebHelp output from this project, but output into a
Word document is another story.
In examining the compiler log, I see the message "Warning:
The Word Document became corrupt when attempting to append the
following malformed topics" followed by a list of topics that
didn't make it into the Word doc (i.e., everything after the point
where it stopped).
What does it mean by "malformed" topic? What can I do to fix
it? I see nothing in the Truecode that suggests a problem, and as I
said, the other outputs are fine.
Alan R. Houser

Hi Alan,
this issue has popped up a few times. Seems to be an issue
with the template. Use the forum search feature and pop 'malformed'
in the search field. You'll see a few threads discussing this
issue. Seems to be a problem with the template that is used for
mapping topics. e.g.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=454&threadid=1136224&hi ghlight_key=y&keyword1=malformed
Kind Regards
Craig

Unable to edit generated Word output

Hello all,
after generating printed Output, the Word document cannot be
edited. The entire content can be copied into a new document though
and then it can be edited. It makes no difference whether the
output into a single Word document or a master is selected. This is
Word 2003 and RH X5 (with Word 2003 patch).
Any ideas about this?

On Adobe's site there are some templates that can be
downloaded. They are referenced in the Print Issues topic on my
site.
I doubt having the wrong ones would have this effect but as
nothing else is working. Have you got a dual installation of Word?
Wonder if that could be a factor.

MS Word output

Hi,
Can somebody guide me in using MS Word template?.How to modify the template and using for getting the output?With matrixes.
Thank u.
Regards,
Sekar

Hi Sekar,
You may check this thread first:
Print layout for Export to MS word
Thanks,
Gordon

How do I change the margins in Word output?

I'm using RoboHelp 9 as an intermediate format to convert FrameMaker 10 source to old-school 7-bit ASCII text with layout. The whole path is FrameMaker > RoboHelp > Word 2010 > Save as MS-DOS Text with Layout. I have this working with MIF2Go but want to switch it to RoboHelp since that's what the company owns.
The FrameMaker doc's page layout is 8.5" x 11" with .25" margins (8" text column). The text is Courier New 12.
The Word document generated by RoboHelp has 1" margins. Where can I change that?

Have you tried creating your own Word template with the required margins and using this when you generate your Word file from RH? See Peter Grainge's site - http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/printing/rh9_printing.htm for details

Pagination issues in Word output from RoboHelp HTML 8

Hi All,
We're generating a Word document from our online help (RoboHelp HTML 8) with MS Word 2003 installed. The page numbers inserted automatically are wrong in that it's skipping numbers. For example, in scrolling down through the document, the page number after 95 is 97. Sections of the doc are paginated correctly, but then we come to a few pages where it skips a number in assigning page numbers. Some of our users have MS Word 2003 and others have 2007, but the pagination issue is occurring in both versions of Word. (BTW, I'm developing WebHelp Pro on Windows XP.)
Today when I clicked in the Word TOC and pressed F9 to regenerate, it corrected some of the pagination problems but not all (go figure).
Is there a patch I need to download or anything?
Thank you!
Mendonite

Do the unnumbered pages have any content? This is ringing a vague bell and it was a Word issue related to blank pages.
Have you actually printed the document?
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
Follow me @petergrainge

Incomplete TOC in Word output

I am working on making a small intro piece of the RH8.01 project to serve as a customer onboarding tool.
First rev I left the default TOC inplace but selected only those 12 tpoics I want to use. (FYI, I am building some small Cap4 sims to be inserted in the .pdf when this process works correctly.) The result worked except that only the Glassary and Index pages were in the TOC.
2nd rev I built one TOC book called "Intro: and then addeed my topics to it. The result was the same with only the Glassary and Index pages in the
TOC.
I could use the full TOC and simply remove the folders and topics I don't need, but that seems rather inefficient.
Any direction or thoughts folks?
Ed

To be honest I am not really following what the problem is. Is it that no matter what you do with the TOC, the printed document only contains the glossary and index? If so I think the missing link is that the TOC that exists when you first define the print layout is the default at that time. If you change the TOC contents, it does not change what is in the print layout, for good reason. Not everyone wants them to be the same.
Take a look at Printed Documentation on my site. Maybe that will cover the problem.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
Follow me @petergrainge

Word output troubleshooting

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