WebHelp Plus search returns no title or paragraph style name

[kashby]

Third-party documents added to a compiled WebHelp Plus project (by copying files to the AutoSearch folder) do not appear correctly in a search. In some cases, a ranking appears next to the entry but the entry title is blank. In other cases, the title displayed is the name of the format used for the paragraph (e.g., "Heading 1"), not the actual heading (e.g., "Cheese is Yummy").

For the most part, even the ugliest of files is searchable without incident (even though search highlighting isn't working). However, as soon as you open a file that works and apply a style (e.g., from Word), all you see is the format name or an empty title. It is important to note that you can't edit a file in the AutoSearch folder. You must edit the file in a new location and copy it to AutoSearch to replace the old file. If you don't, the file will no longer be searchable from your project until you do.

[kashby]

Somehow, I find answering your own question is akin to hearing voices and talking to yourself, but here goes nothing....

What I learned about this issue was that IIS uses the document title listed in Word's document properties dialog to populate the title field in a search. This means that if no title is provided, the title field will be blank in a search. Likewise, if your title no longer matches the current document content, you will pull bad data in your search.

The source of my problem was a Word template I was using. The template opens with sample text, including "Heading 1" at the top of the page. This resulted in Word automatically assigning "Heading 1" as the title for all new documents created using this template. Awesome. Once I changed the title in the properties dialog, the title appeared in the search and everything came up as expected.

I would recommend checking any Word document posted in the AutoSearch folder to make sure the title matches the actual file content before making it available for use. As far as other document types, some file types don't have a properties setting that allows you to specify a title (e.g., text files)--these files still appear blank in a search. Perhaps we need a default setting to pull in the first sentence as the title?

[SteveS]

Thanks for that, Kashby.

One of the great things about this forum is when people solve their own problems and share the solution with the rest of us, because sometimes we don't know the answer. To me, Flare is very much a learning experiece (still) - I've always said the day I don't learn something is the day I die. Then again, I am a trainer as well as a documentation specialist....