RE: WinHelp: Corrupt Images in Help File

Subject: RE: WinHelp: Corrupt Images in Help File
From: "Paul Hanson" <phanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 10:37:06 -0400

Keith,

You're using a single 1200 page Word doc for this project? As Frank
Barone (RIP) would've said, "Holy crap."

I would definitely split that single Word file into multiple Word docs.
If you need help splitting up the doc, I can do it for you if you send
me the Word doc. I used to do it all the time for Word docs in my
projects. I would split it up at the Heading 1. There's really no limit
as to how many Word docs you can have - you can have 1 topic in each
doc, if you want. Typically, though, Heading 1 works for a good
splitter.

I get the feeling you're under deadline pressure, though, and may not be
able to split it up at this point.

Haven't seen the multicolored electronic blur.

The green wall with cracks in the plaster comes when the compiler can't
find the graphic. In general, I would reinsert the graphics that you see
this with in the hope that recreating the link to the graphic will
correct itself. You can use the option on Word's RoboHelp menu to switch
from WYSIWYG to True Code and then back again. If you watch Word do
this, you'll be able to see briefly which graphics Word is having
trouble with. However, I would not do this with a 1200 page doc!!

If it's taking a 1/2 hour to compile, what compression settings are you
using? What is the file size without compressing? What is the file size
with compressing?

I used to have issues with one of my larger projects <though much
smaller than the one you're working with> and compression. I ended up
setting it to "no compression" and the issues went away.

Another thing you can do is to use HCW.exe directly to compile your
project. You may get more meaningful messages than what RH gives you. I
often used HCW.exe outside of RH to troubleshoot.

On of the "Hail Mary" tactics that used to work would be to close RH,
delete the RTF file, and reopen RH. RH tells you that the <filename>.rtf
file needs to be saved and starts doing it. However.... With a 1200 page
Word file this would not be the route to go unless nothing with the
compression settings worked.

Let me know if you need help with anything.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Hansen
<snip>
I generated (compiled) the final help file. Some images are corrupted in
the compiled help file:

* One image looks like a multicolored electronic blur.
* Another image looks like a green wall with cracks in the plaster! The
filename of the image is displayed at the bottom of this image.

I generated the final help file a second time. The images look fine.

In other words, images seem to vary each time I generate the help file.
An image can look corrupted one time, but fine the next.

Has anyone ever encountered this? Any ways to prevent this from
occurring?

In RoboHelp, the Word file containing the topics is HUGE (1,200 pages; I
didn't create this project). It takes 30+ minutes to generate the final
help file. Could this huge file size be the source of the problem?
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References:
WinHelp: Corrupt Images in Help File: From: Keith Hansen

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