MadCap Software Forums

A client is having problems with our CHM where the Related Links display a script error when you click them. The error is "Object doesn't support this property or method".

The client is using IE 6, and I suspect it is an issue with browser security. If they open the CHM directly (not launching it ...

... and the results are in: http://www.writersua.com/surveys/tools10/index.html

mlewin wrote:Thanks Bob! Do you know if there's a way to import Powerpoint slides as images in Flare with/without notes, or will that have to remain a manual process?

I don't think you can import from PowerPoint directly into Flare. It will import Word documents, but not PPT to my knowledge.

Bob

Interesting question, Mark. We are not using Flare for training guides, but it seems that it should work. Creating an instructor guide and student guide from one source is the same as creating help for two related products or creating customized help for professional services clients. You will have ...

I've worked as the one-man doc department for start-ups and as a consultant for small businesses, and this doesn't surprise me. A start-up I worked for went the other way--they closed down their outsourced data center and set up a company-owned one. But during the transition (which was very ...

Hi Deb -

It looks like your message slipped through the cracks over the holidays. I'll "bump" it up and maybe one of the gurus will take notice.

Though I have to say from my experience that I was much less successful getting Word output to format the way I wanted. Like you, I got the PDF format ...

I would submit it, but explaining it would be difficult.

In bug reports for issues like this, I usually just include the URL of the forum topic where the issue has been discussed, such as:

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10285

There's a lot more info here than what you ...

If I feel brave, I'll try that next time.

If you have unsaved changes in a file, Flare will prompt you to save changes before switching to the Text Editor. That may not happen when you have this error condition. Still, it's worth a try and shouldn't cause anything worse than closing without ...

Nobody replied to your message, so I'll take a stab at it. The <![CDATA[ ]]> tag seems to be Flare's way of handling "extra" spaces, almost like a non-breaking space. Sometimes I get them when I delete content and tags, or when I apply formatting in a way that includes a space. I'm not really sure ...

...but given such a maximum width, how can all the writers on our team find out whether their <pre>-formatted text meets this standard? (Preferably without stepping outside the Flare XML Editor.)

How about a graphic of a 400px line? Insert that above your code sample and eyeball it?

Or, figure ...

I don't believe that Flare includes a non-breaking hyphen, at least not in the special characters list.

I found references online to the Unicode character &8209;. Flare renders that okay in the XML Editor when you put it in your source as ‑. I tried making text like this:
‑one ‑two ‑three ‑four ...

We do something similar, since we also generate a combination of web help and stand-alone guides. I've started using snippets as a convenient way of inserting XRefs, since I've found it hard to consistently select the text I want to conditionalize.

For a link to a target that will be in the same ...

The link provided in this thread to the KB did not work for me. Here's a link without spaces.

Embedding Images in Word output

Bob

The link provided in this thread to the KB did not work for me. Here's a link without spaces.

Embedding Images in Word output

Bob

As far as I know, there is no way to change to a different text editor. Are you using v5, because they have made some very good improvements over the old editor.

The search function on the forum is pretty useless (mostly an a issue with the phpBB software they use), but there are a few options for ...

Our WebHelp system uses URL calls to create context-sensitive Help. I am wondering how to control the size of the window that a CSH topic opens in.

Is there a parameter in the skin file (flskn) file that controls this?
You can set the size of the browser window in the Skin properties using the ...

I don't believe you can change those elements using the skin editor. I think you're left with overwriting the images.

As you said, you can overwrite the files in your output folder (\Output\Username\ProjectName\Skin\Images) each time you compile, or you can overwrite them in the Flare source (C ...

What version of Flare are you using? What you described works fine for me in v5. I inserted a new decoration frame and on the Background tab I set it to Solid and assigned a start color of Black. It gives me a black rectangle that I can position on the page.

On the Size tab, what values are you ...

Sounds like you may have a problem with the encoding method used on your javascript file. Have you edited it since installing v5? If so, what program did you use?

You would get this problem if you edited a script file with a program that changes the file encoding type to one your server doesn't ...

I have never seen those characters in my Flare XML files, but I've seen them working with other applications. Are these characters in files that you have edited, or is this the way you found them in Flare?

What are you using for text editing? You generally don't want to use an editor that changes ...

It sure would be nice to be able to modify the TOC Entry Hover Color and Selected Topic Color from within the skin editor.

Make sure that you let MadCap know how you feel at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx. They respond very well to the collective voice of the user community.

Bob

Most of the WebHelp TOC behavior is controlled by Javascript files in Flare. Unfortunately, you cannot control that just using the skin or the stylesheet. However, you can modify this behavior by changing the Flare source files. There is a KB article on modifying the hover color of the TOC entries ...

The other thing I did was create just one TOC and set up all properties of each topic using the Grid view of the TOC (which you can only see by clicking Tree View, go figure). I conditioned all topics as Comment, and selected against that in the Target and then when I want to print one, I just ...

Flare can do first, right, and left pages, but it doesn't do a last page--unless the last page is the "empty" one caused by forcing the output to end on the left (even) page.

Until you asked the question, I hadn't realized that the "empty" page doesn't really have to be empty. We use the empty ...

madcapnewbie wrote:I tried deleting all of the folders that didn't have chapter numbers in front of them but everytime I regenerate they appear again.

Do you mean they are included in your output folder each time, or do they reappear in Content Explorer when you have deleted them?

Bob