Spellchecker glitch solved: random SPAN tags

[ccardimon]

Why would open and closed SPAN tags be spread throughout my topic, seemingly at random, sometimes in the middle of words, sentences, or paragraphs?

This is what's messing up my spellchecker.

What might have caused them to appear, and can I get rid of them?

[LTinker68]

Was the content imported from Word? I'm betting those were places in the Word document where a user might have originally had some red text or some highlighted text, and when they changed it to black or removed the highlight they didn't select everything, so there is a single space that had red color or a highlight applied to it, so Flare inserted spans to keep that inline style, but it also removes extra spaces sometimes, so you're left with empty span tags.

That's a guess, though. If you have a topic that was created entirely in Flare and it also has a bunch of empty spans then they're coming from something else. If I'm right in that the topics with the empty spans were all imported from Word, then that's another reason to clean styles in Word before doing an import.

[ccardimon]

Was the content imported from Word? I'm betting those were places in the Word document where a user might have originally had some red text or some highlighted text, and when they changed it to black or removed the highlight they didn't select everything, so there is a single space that had red color or a highlight applied to it, so Flare inserted spans to keep that inline style, but it also removes extra spaces sometimes, so you're left with empty span tags.

Correct.

That's a guess, though. If you have a topic that was created entirely in Flare and it also has a bunch of empty spans then they're coming from something else. If I'm right in that the topics with the empty spans were all imported from Word, then that's another reason to clean styles in Word before doing an import.

So where would I get a crash course in how to clean styles in Word?

[LTinker68]

So where would I get a crash course in how to clean styles in Word?

In Word 2003 (don't know how to get to it in 2007), go to Format > Styles and Formatting. It'll add a pane on the right, similar to the Styles pane in Flare. At the bottom of the pane, set the "Show" field to "Formatting in use". That'll show all of the styles that are being used in that document. Scroll through it and look for any odd, seldom-used styles. For instance, if your document is all Arial and you see Times New Roman in one spot, then right-click on Times New Roman in the pane and select "Select All x Instance(s)", where x is the number of times that style is used in the document. You can either delete the style and it'll default to the Normal style, or you can change it to the same font as the rest of the document, etc. Just try to clean up the styles so you're left only with the styles you want.

The only thing is that it doesn't show highlighted text. For that, you'd need to do a Find in the document. In the Find and Replace screen, click More, then click Format, then click Highlight. Leave the "Find what" field blank, then click Find Next. That will find any blank spaces in the document that have a highlight effect applied to them, so you can delete the space or set the highlight back to white.

[ccardimon]

I'll try it. Thanks, Lisa.

[SteveS]

I'm a real fan of clear formatting. If it doesn't show on the styles and formatting pane in Word 2003, you can add it via the customise button (link?) at the bottom of the pane. Word 2007 includes a clear formatting button as part of the format group on the home tab of the ribbon.

Given the trouble you are having with this import, you could copy the whole word document, paste unformatted text (Word's paste special) into a new Word document and import that into Flare. Then you can start afresh with a blank style sheet, create styles and apply them as needed. It's the long way, but at least you are starting from a fresh slate. And you don't have to create content...

[ccardimon]

I'm a real fan of clear formatting. If it doesn't show on the styles and formatting pane in Word 2003, you can add it via the customise button (link?) at the bottom of the pane. Word 2007 includes a clear formatting button as part of the format group on the home tab of the ribbon.

Given the trouble you are having with this import, you could copy the whole word document, paste unformatted text (Word's paste special) into a new Word document and import that into Flare. Then you can start afresh with a blank style sheet, create styles and apply them as needed. It's the long way, but at least you are starting from a fresh slate. And you don't have to create content...

I just tried it as a test on a part of the file that's giving me fits. Seem to work, EXCEPT I lost all the image captures. Sigh. Is there a way to do that Paste Special and KEEP the image captures?

[ccardimon]

So where would I get a crash course in how to clean styles in Word?

In Word 2003 (don't know how to get to it in 2007), go to Format > Styles and Formatting. It'll add a pane on the right, similar to the Styles pane in Flare. At the bottom of the pane, set the "Show" field to "Formatting in use". That'll show all of the styles that are being used in that document. Scroll through it and look for any odd, seldom-used styles. For instance, if your document is all Arial and you see Times New Roman in one spot, then right-click on Times New Roman in the pane and select "Select All x Instance(s)", where x is the number of times that style is used in the document. You can either delete the style and it'll default to the Normal style, or you can change it to the same font as the rest of the document, etc. Just try to clean up the styles so you're left only with the styles you want.

The only thing is that it doesn't show highlighted text. For that, you'd need to do a Find in the document. In the Find and Replace screen, click More, then click Format, then click Highlight. Leave the "Find what" field blank, then click Find Next. That will find any blank spaces in the document that have a highlight effect applied to them, so you can delete the space or set the highlight back to white.

Thanks, Lisa. This was a big help.

[rmdavidson]

Why would open and closed SPAN tags be spread throughout my topic, seemingly at random, sometimes in the middle of words, sentences, or paragraphs?

This is what's messing up my spellchecker.

What might have caused them to appear, and can I get rid of them?

This is the closest thing I've found to my issue in the forum in my searches thus far, but I can't say how the content was created because I'm new and the old writer is gone. Also, this is my 3rd day with Flare so I may be a bit dense/dumb at times. I have Flare 7.

I have what are apparently empty XML tags as the text has the square brackets with arrows around it. However, whenever I click on the span and try to edit the class, I'm told there's no style associated with it. What I'm rather confused about as well is that this text is showing as normal text in Flare, but when I look at the CHM or help on the website that they've produced, it's bold. I can't figure out why that would be. Shouldn't it look the same in Flare? I'm looking at Layout (Web) in the XML Editor. It's in a numbered list as well, but I'm not sure if that matters?

Example:

1. Open the FPOS Back Office
2. Click on Settings

Those are bold in the output, but not in Flare's XML Editor.

Thanks,

Robin

[crdmerge]

Is there a span style (in a style sheet) assigned to those words? That is, "<span class="fields">Settings</span>" with a "span.fields" class inside your .css file?
That .css file might not even be inside your project source folder, but does still reside in the output folder you're publishing to.


Good luck,
Leon

[rmdavidson]

Whenever I click on the words within the span tag (when they're highlighted blue and let me go to Style Class > Edit Style Class) and go to edit a style sheet it tells me there isn't one. When I look at the XML there is nothing but this...

Code: Select all

<h2+>To activate a 5.0 license online:>/h2>
<p+>1. Open the <span+>FPOS Back Office</span></p>
<p+>2. Click on <span+>Settings</span></p>

Edit: I just found a place in step 7 where there is no code around a word and it is bold in the output, but not in the XML Editor.

Robin

[i-tietz]

That's something I never understood: Why did MC call it "style" and not "class" since that what it is called in w3c terminology?
Now it's backfiring ...

Yes: the attribute in the span tag is called "style" but it is not what is called "style" in Flare.
Just because it's a span it doesn't have to be a "style" (="class") applied to it. It could also be "inline formatting" such as bold or italic (<span style="font-weight: bold;">)

[crdmerge]

I'd try to identify where those + characters (<h2+>, <p+>, etc.) are coming from. I've never seen that; has anyone else? There's probably a lot of stuff in the <head></head> section of the individual topics (much like when you Save As Html from Word), based on whatever conversion was involved to get the result you're dealing with.


Good luck,
Leon

[rmdavidson]

I'd try to identify where those + characters (<h2+>, <p+>, etc.) are coming from. I've never seen that; has anyone else? There's probably a lot of stuff in the <head></head> section of the individual topics (much like when you Save As Html from Word), based on whatever conversion was involved to get the result you're dealing with.


Good luck,
Leon

Leon,

I asked someone else here if he knew XML and he said he'd never seen it before either. I clicked a tag to show him what I meant and it collapsed. Apparently it expands and collapses the content in the tag because when you click it the code goes from a plus sign to a minus.

Code: Select all

Example 1:

<p+>  </p>
to
<p->

Example 2:

<p+>What's New</p>
to
<p->

All this does is make me scratch my head. I don't see what purpose this serves as it just makes it look like funky syntax to me.

[crdmerge]

You're sure there's nothing in the <head></head> section of the topic that reads like:

p+ {
font blah, blah;
}

And you're sure that there was never a style sheet that has been misplaced?

You might try making a copy of the project, and in that copy using Find and Replace to eliminate the + in each of the tags. Then see what your results are.

[rmdavidson]

There's just images, fonts, link styling, and paragraph fonts and margins in the header.

I'm starting to suspect there wasn't a stylesheet as many things like the graphics for bullets are just links. There are no styles listed. One of the guys here told me late yesterday that part of the reason they needed a writer was things like that...no styles, cleaning up formatting, spelling, etc.

I've found a newer version of the project in another location (At least 3 so far) and it doesn't have many styles either. I haven't been able to find a way to see what styles are actually in use in the project, just how to disable ones I know aren't being used. Being my 4th day here I don't know it well enough to know what is being used and what isn't since not every style is on every page of course.

Robin

[crdmerge]

At this point, I'd suggest the nuclear option: create a new project and set your styles in the default Styles.css. (See the http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp site for css tutorials.)

Then create a new topic, copy content from the old project into Notepad (to flush all the bad stuff), then copy/paste into your new topic. You then start assigning styles as you see fit.

[wclass]

That looks like you are using "Show tags" - you are better off using the text editor to view the actual code.
Show tags is a toggle on the topic toolbar that looks like "<t>" - personally I don't find it of much use. The final icon on the toolbar is "Send to text editor" - that one will open up the topic in a HTML view and you can better troubleshoot those span tags.

[i-tietz]

I'd try to identify where those + characters (<h2+>, <p+>, etc.) are coming from. I've never seen that; has anyone else? There's probably a lot of stuff in the <head></head> section of the individual topics (much like when you Save As Html from Word), based on whatever conversion was involved to get the result you're dealing with.

I asked someone else here if he knew XML and he said he'd never seen it before either. I clicked a tag to show him what I meant and it collapsed. Apparently it expands and collapses the content in the tag because when you click it the code goes from a plus sign to a minus.

You switched on the "toggle show tags" mode (in the toolbar of the topic) ... if you switch it off, you will have the normal xml editor looks.
This mode is supposed to help you understand what elements the text contains without switching to the text editor.

[rmdavidson]

I don't know how it got switched on. It has always been like that unless I somehow did it without realizing it. I can't find where to turn it on/off despite searching the online help.

Thanks,

Robin

[crdmerge]

It's the next to last button on the XML Editor toolbar, a <t> button. Click its down arrow to reveal the Show Markers and Show Inline Markers options.


Good luck,
Leon

[i-tietz]

It's one of the buttons of the toolbar for the topic (not one of those that you have even if no topic is open!). Just hover the cursor over the buttons and you'll get a tool tip.

[rmdavidson]

Why would open and closed SPAN tags be spread throughout my topic, seemingly at random, sometimes in the middle of words, sentences, or paragraphs?

This is what's messing up my spellchecker.

What might have caused them to appear, and can I get rid of them?

This is the closest thing I've found to my issue in the forum in my searches thus far, but I can't say how the content was created because I'm new and the old writer is gone. Also, this is my 3rd day with Flare so I may be a bit dense/dumb at times. I have Flare 7.

I have what are apparently empty XML tags as the text has the square brackets with arrows around it. However, whenever I click on the span and try to edit the class, I'm told there's no style associated with it. What I'm rather confused about as well is that this text is showing as normal text in Flare, but when I look at the CHM or help on the website that they've produced, it's bold. I can't figure out why that would be. Shouldn't it look the same in Flare? I'm looking at Layout (Web) in the XML Editor. It's in a numbered list as well, but I'm not sure if that matters?

Example:

1. Open the FPOS Back Office
2. Click on Settings

Those are bold in the output, but not in Flare's XML Editor.

Thanks,

Robin

HA!! I just found a network folder that says RoboHelp (Legacy). So perhaps she brought it over from RoboHelp 8 to Flare. Whether anything else was involved at one point I don't know. There is a RoboHelp 8 box in my drawer (just saw it has an upgrade version sticker on it), but it isn't installed on my computer and no one I've asked knows of her ever having used RoboHelp. The manager here is willing to buy whatever you prefer and told me she used Flare. It just makes me wonder if there was a writer before her since only about 3% of their stuff is documented, but they have RH8.

Robin

[crdmerge]

Sorry, Robin, those plus tags have nothing to do with a possible RoboHelp conversion.

I know: we've converted two 40-project merged WebHelp systems from RH to Flare, and there's no such code anywhere in the files.


Good luck,
Leon

[rmdavidson]

Sorry, Robin, those plus tags have nothing to do with a possible RoboHelp conversion.

I know: we've converted two 40-project merged WebHelp systems from RH to Flare, and there's no such code anywhere in the files.


Good luck,
Leon

But the empty span tags part? Or < img /> which has no link or anything in it perhaps?

Robin