Importing a ForeHelp project

[ralfgrisard]

I am just starting to use Flare, and my first assignment is to convert a ForeHelp Windows 95 Help project into a Flare MS HTML project. Since Flare does not directly import ForeHelp projects, I'm trying to decide the best way to go about the conversion. I've tried importing the RTF of the original project, but the resulting HTML codes in Flare were very messy (lots of unneeded duplicated codes), and though the styles in Flare looked OK in the preview window, no styles appeared in the HTML output (although they _did_ appear when I tried creating DotNet Help). Any suggestions for the best way to proceed will be appreciated.

PS - The ForeHelp project contains about 600 topics including quite a few graphics.

[KevinDAmery]

I'm not familiar with Forehelp (I was in another career stream at the time it was prevalent) - does it have the ability to create Microsoft HTML Help? (aka CHM files) If it does, then it should also create temporary files somewhere. You can use the HHP and the temporary HTML files there to recreate the project in Flare. The full process is described in Flare's help in the "Importing an HTML Help Project" topic.

[QBF]

I am just starting to use Flare, and my first assignment is to convert a ForeHelp Windows 95 Help project into a Flare MS HTML project.

First of all, my condolences for getting stuck using Forehelp. It is easy to see why that company went out of business. My suggestion (after using that bloody software) is to copy everything from Forehelp into Notepad, and then paste it into Flare. Otherwise you just bring over tons of garbage you do not want. It goes pretty quickly after you get in the rhythm, and the results are well worth the extra effort. If you just copy and paste directly into Flare you will most likely end up fixing the topics anyway so you might as well do it right to begin with.

Nine years ago I went from Forehelp into Dreamweaver and was very glad I took the time to remove all the crap code. The few topics that were not "cleaned," ended up giving us a real pain.

[Richard Ferrell]

You maybe able to copy the HTML files into a Flare project and then open the topics in Flare to convert them to XML. ALso if you have an HHP that can be imported also

[ralfgrisard]

Thanks for your helpful replies. I think I am going to copy the ForeHelp text into Notepad and then use it to build clean topics in Flare. That may be more work than using ForeHelp to build a CHM file and then importing the HHP, but it will at least assure that my new Flare project will not be cluttered with junky tags imported from ForeHelp. Again, thanks so much for your responses.

Ralf Grisard