Importing older Robohelp files with hpj extension

[Elrick]

There might be a very simple solution to the problem:
(I know because that's how we did it)
You use RH to produce a WebHelp. There should be a .hhp file in the output folder - that one you can import into Flare:

html_help_project.png

Thank you for that. However when I create webhelp from RoboHelp I'm not getting a HHP file. I am getting HHC and HHK files. I've got hidden files displayed in my Windows folder options and I've been through the compile options in RoboHelp and I can't see what I'm doing wrong. Any ideas?

Thanks

[Nita Beck]

Interesting thread. I'm just now in the process of migrating a legacy ForeHelp project to Flare via RoboHelp.

Elrick, are you coming from RoboHelp for Word X5 or RoboHelp HTML for X5? I presume that you have access to both, as they were sold together as X5, as I recall.

Are you trying to go from RoboHelp for Word X5 straight to Flare? If so, that may be why you're not seeing an .hhp, which was suggested to you as a viable route into Flare.

I'm pretty sure that you can yield an .hhp file if you use RoboHelp HTML X5 as the intermediate step. Exit RH for Word, launch RH HTML X5, and open the RH for Word project from there. That will get everything out of the darned Word document and into separate .htm files. You don't really have to spend much time in the RH HTML project, but perhaps generate a .chm once just for good luck. I believe that if you examine the project folder (in Windows Explorer) you'll see now that you've got an .hhp.

Next try importing that .hhp into Flare. Any success?

In my ForeHelp to RoboHelp to Flare route, I found that a FH to RH for Word route was useless, but the FH to RH HTML route did yield that .hhp.
(Caveat: I have both RH X5 and RH X7, so I ultimately didn't use X5 at all, just X7, so that I could get an .xpj, which Flare plays nicely with. But I'm offering what little advice I can out of my observations as I tested the different routes to take...)

I hope this is useful. Please post back either way...

[Elrick]

Thank you Nita. You have helped no end.

I'm a bit embarrassed now. I had forgotten about RoboHelp HTML (in my defence I haven't used RoboHelp in almost three years).

Converting the HDK source Help file to RoboHelp HTML created a useable source which could be converted to Flare without further work because RH X5 created an .xpj - although I might still generate the webhelp and pick up the .hhp file to see if it makes things any better, but that'll have to wait for another day as the project is over 6,000 topics and the compile and conversion times are correspondingly longer.

The conversion from HDK to RoboHelp has lost the index entries and map IDs from the original help (it had no toc). I'm not sure map IDs can be converted as they were handled very differently in HDK (I seem to remember problems around this when we converted other projects to RoboHelp in the last century), but I'm going to see if I can convert the index entries. It has, however, converted the old HDK hyperlinks (which were hardcoded in HDK) which is the one thing I really wanted to convert. I don't mind building a new index and alias file, but manually recreating tens of thousands of hyperlinks would have made the conversion impossible.

The style information hasn't come across intact either, with some of the styles having the wrong font size or losing some settings, but that is pretty easy to fix in the style sheet.

I'm going to play around with the conversion to RoboHelp to see what, if anything, I can salvage there before making my final conversion, but it is looking more promising.

Thanks again.

David Elrick

[Nita Beck]

Glad to be helpful.

Regarding losing the index entries, try this:

Start over again by importing the original project into RoboHelp HTML. When the importer asks you how you want to handle index entries, elect to keep them in the HHK, not in individual topics. After that project is created, create a brand new Flare project and import THAT new RH project. Flare should know what to do with the HHK. Do you then get the index entries?

I spent a good 8 hours over the last few days working out all the issues with my FH to RH HTML X5 to Flare workflow, trying different import options at different stages and observing the results I got. Give it another whirl before deciding that you have to rebuild the index.

Good luck! Post back.

p.s. A bit off-topic: This idea re the HHK was actually inspired by one of my pals in the Rochester (NY) Flare User Group (a user group I founded a few years ago), whom I called yesterday for some advice as I knew she had already been through several RH-to-Flare conversions. I encourage all you propellerheads out there to form your own local Flare users communities. We here in the Rochester area meet monthly to share ideas, and we are constantly amazed at how much we learn from each other.