Unresolved link to file warning in Word output

[lorikaufman]

I've been fixing warnings in my help projects and I came across an error in the Word output that says "Unresolved link to file: [path to file]. File may not be included in the output.

In one project, I managed to find and fix the problem. But it was in a topic file that was not mentioned in the warning.

I'm now trying to fix the same type of warning in another project and I can't figure out where the problem is.

This warning is not descriptive enough. How can I know where the problem actually is?

[Nita Beck]

Welcome to the forums!

You can run a Broken Link analysis to find the file that contains the broken link.

If you are using Flare 2018 r2, use Analysis > Links > Broken Links. After Flare scans the project, it will give you a list of files that contain broken links. Double-click a row from the list to open that topic. I'm pretty sure that Flare takes you right to the offending link.

If you're using an older version of Flare, use View > Project Analysis > Broken Links. Everything else above applies.

HTH (and sorry so brief. It's Friday and quittin' time!)

[lorikaufman]

I did that and there are no broken links.

I also selected View Links for the offending topic listed in the description and investigated those. I couldn't figure out where the problem is.

[jjw]

I don't know if this is relevant to your case, but I commonly include links to Word documents in my Word output (I then use a macro to merge the linked documents). No matter where I put the linked document Flare consistently generates an inaccurate link in the output - specifically it always has one too many directory levels in the link. For example, if the link should be "..\blah.doc", Flare will render it as "..\..\blah.doc". My workaround is to give links like this a specific css class and then search and correct them in my after-publish macro.

J

[Phlawm53]

I've had the same problem when dealing with content imported from Word.

Some of the things I've done to resolve those problems include:

ONE:

Instead of the list of errors generated during Build, I go to the build Log. I usually copy-and-paste the log into a text editor for easier searching. More than once the Log has more clearly identified which file was being processed when the error occurred.

TWO:

On more than one occasion the problem was in the file being linked to rather than the file containing the source link. As I recall (it's been a while), one aspect of this was IF the destination link was mid-topic and so had a # anchor appended to the base link, THEN Flare didn't handle that gracefully...

Cheers,
Riley
SFO

[lorikaufman]

Thanks, Phlawm53! The second issue you listed turned out to be the problem. There were a couple of places where the links were jumping to a specific place in the offending topic. I took those out. But, I want to put them back in correctly so I can link to that location without warnings, if that's possible.

I've had the same problem when dealing with content imported from Word.

Some of the things I've done to resolve those problems include:

ONE:

Instead of the list of errors generated during Build, I go to the build Log. I usually copy-and-paste the log into a text editor for easier searching. More than once the Log has more clearly identified which file was being processed when the error occurred.

TWO:

On more than one occasion the problem was in the file being linked to rather than the file containing the source link. As I recall (it's been a while), one aspect of this was if the destination link was mid-topic and so had a # anchor appended to the base link.

Cheers,
Riley
SFO

[Phlawm53]

But, I want to put [the malformed links] back in correctly so I can link to that location without warnings, if that's possible.

Do you happen to know REGEX? I've used REGEX find-replace to tweak malformed text, including but not limited to links.

Code: Select all

<editorial_digression>

For those who don't know REGEX, learn it. REGEX's basic syntax isn't hard to learn. And even simple REGEX can be very helpful. Especially when working with structured text.

IMPORTANT: It sounds obvious, I know, but ALWAYS back up your files before doing REGEX find-replaces. People generally focus on getting REGEX to find text. But in some instances REGEX keeps finding when the REGEX-er expected it to stop. See The Greedy Trap et al. If the REGEX find statement is greedy when that isn't wanted, a subsequent replace operation will surely destroy the files being operated on...

Code: Select all

</editorial_digression>

Not incidentally, the world's best tool for both learning AND developing REGEX is regex101.com. That wonderful online tool enables one to see exactly what one's REGEX is or is not doing.

ALSO, other posters may be able to recommend other approaches...

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

P.S. FYI, there was a confirmed bug in Flare's (execrable) text editor wherein a REGEX replace that quoted a character such as \n (newline) would insert the text value \n rather than its hexadecimal equivalent. So the replaced text would not contain a functional newline but rather the text \n. I haven't received any updates regarding the remediation of that bug...