TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> wrote in message news:221960 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
>
> Chuck Martin reports: <<I'm still struggling with Word's indexing... I'm
> getting duplicate first-level entries in a document that's generated by
> RoboHelp X4.1, although I don't think that it being generated by RH should
> make a difference.>>
>
> I'm not using X4, but here's a guess based on some of the settings and
> glitches I've encountered in previous versions: First, RH has what it
calls
> a "smart indexing" wizard (which I've never used because computers can't
do
> indexes right... not yet, leastwise). If this has been turned on by
default
> in some obscure preferences dialog or enabled in some equally obscure
> Project setting, that would certainly explain your problem. Do a bit of
> digging in both likely and unlikely places and see whether you can disable
> this wizard.
Never do I use any program's "Smart" anything; such features are typically
aimed at novices and provide results that are far from usable.
The entire index, all keywords and sub-keywords, were entered/edited
manually.
>
> Second, RH Classic 9.x has a bug in the indexing feature, in which the
Index
> tab for a topic's properties dialog box doesn't always show all the terms
> that are actually listed under the K (keyword) footnote for that topic. No
> idea where these come from, but they're easy to fix if you're careful.
After
> editing an index, open the footnotes window and manually remove any
> duplicate or spurious entries. That may be your problem. I've always been
a
> bit leery about mucking about under the hood with highly automated
software
> such as RH, but this particular bit of skullduggery has been perfectly
safe
> in my experience--provided you don't muck up the punctuation in the
footnote
> (have a close look at how the keywords are separated before you edit
them).
Three is no footnotes window; the default output is WebHelp and the native
files are HTML. I haven't created a WinHelp file, which used to require a
Word document as source for the Help compiler with all its attendant
footnotes and hidden-text links, in years.
>
> As an example of obscure settings, I recently revised a help project in RH
> Classic to include the new versions of screenshots. When I compiled the
> project, I got a warning about transparent graphics. "Huh? I never use
> transparent graphics." But sure enough, when I took a close look at the
> dialog box for inserting a graphic, the "make graphic transparent"
checkbox
> had been selected.
>
> Another time, I kept getting the wrong Map IDs: spent an hour updating
them
> to conform with a standard I'd written to ensure consistency between
> projects, yet there was RH, helpfully renumbering all my manually entered
> IDs. A bit of head scratching and a search through the tabs of the Project
> settings revealed that the "autogenerate Map IDs" checkbox had been
selected
> by default. Guess I missed that. Unchecking it solved the problem quite
> nicely.
>
I have been through every RH and Project option I can find, going through
every menu and every option.
I realized as I was going to sleep last night that it's truly sad that RH
provides not one option for how an index should appear in the printed
output. The Index field has a number of options that control how an index
looks, but RH simply decides that it knows best, so if you want to change
any of those options, you have to do it manually--each time you re-generate
the printed output. So much for "improved" printed output in version 4.
It doesn't look like it's anything RH is doing in creating the Word file:
all the XE entries *look* corrent. Yet when I do a smaple and add XE entries
manually, the resulting index looks corect. When the XE entries are added as
a part of RH's Word file generation, the index is screwy.
--
--
Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net www.writeforyou.com
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day
may come when the courage of Men fail, when we forsake our friends and break
all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! This day, we fight!"
- Aragorn
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
- Gandalf
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
