Importing From Word 'Object' Error

[alexsamson]

Hi,

I'm hoping somebody can help with this. I recently spent a long time debating between RH and Flare. I chose Flare and now find that it is not capable of performing something as simple as importing a Word doc. Does anybody now what the message "MsWord Importer (Internal Error): Object reference not set to an instance of an object" means?

I'm trying to import a simple Word doc comprising Heading 1,2,3,4 and Body text. Figured this would be the easiest way to get straight into working with this application but apparently it might be easier to rewrite from scratch or move back to RH.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

AGS

I hate joining forums in a bad mood but this programme cost a lot of money and so far I'm regretting the decision.

[Msquared]

Hi there,

Welcome to the MadCap forums!

Flare import from Word does work, and that's exactly how I started too. The styles may need a bit of tidying up after import, however . . .

Unfortunately, it seems there is something about your specific setup that has triggered a Flare bug though, and without knowing a lot more about what version you are using, what your setup is and what you are doing, etc, I couldn't guess what has happened, or what else you could try. It's really unfortunate that you've fallen (or been tripped up) at the first hurdle.

If you have purchased MadCap support, my first suggestion would be to contact them. They are excellent and will certainly be able to help.

If not, or if you want to be proactive anyway, the first thing I would check is what version of Microsoft's .NET you have installed. The latest is .NET 4.5 I think, but Microsoft made quite significant changes between 4.0 and 4.5 and rather broke backwards compatability. MadCap, along with many other software companies, are still playing catch-up with bugs introduced, I believe.

So, if you have anything below .NET 4.0, I would say upgrade to .NET 4.0 first. If you have .NET 4.5 and are in a position to do so, you could try going back to .NET 4.0. But, if, like me, you have to use .NET 4.5, then it's one for MadCap, I'm afraid. Although if you are using Flare 9.0, then you could try upgrading to Flare 9.1, which has just come out and may have addressed your issue.

It took me a while to get to like Flare and live with its quirks, of which there are several. And of course it isn't quite as robust as something like Word, which has millions and millions of users worldwide, and hence far more resources and the whole weight of Microsoft behind into it (good or bad depending on your viewpoint!). But MadCap's support and responsiveness makes up for that with spades. I had an uneasy truce with Flare for a while, but now I've got my head round it and I'm really feeling the benefit of its single sourcing capabilities, and the flexibility of its XML content, I, along with many other Flare users, absolutely love it, despite the odd bug. But MadCap support are better that Adobe support by millions of miles, and really listen to their customers.

[wclass]

You've hit one of the annoying errors that don't explain the issue. As well as checking the suggested install for .Net etc, check these Word items that can cause problems:

• Is there a cover page or new content controls in the word document? (was a problem in an older Flare version).
• Are there extra section breaks (should work but sometimes Flare croaks)?
• Is there a generated Index or TOC with no entries anymore, or invalid entries? MIght have to delete or recreate.

I also suggest sending it to Madcap support.
What versions of Flare and Word do you have? Are you possibly importing a document created in a newer version of Word than what is installed on your machine?

[SteveS]

I've always been a fan of simplifying the word document as much as possible. I've even converted them to plain text via notepad++ and then applied the styles again using Flare. Although it takes longer, it makes maintenance much easier without having legacy from the Word document.

I know this isn't always possible, but if you can consider Flare a fresh start for your documents it can save a bit of grief!

[dbjewkes]

I recently ran into the same issue when trying to create a project from importing a Word document into Flare 9.1.1. When I deselected the "Create a Page Layout for each section header/footer" option in the import wizard, the error disappeared and the import was successful.

[Spectre]

Thanks to the last poster for the suggestion to deselect the "Create a Page Layout for each section..." option. In my case, I'd done a Word import, then reworked some style mappings, selected the "Create a Page Layout for each section..." option and tried to reimport. I got the error message, but once I'd deselected the option, I could reimport successfully with my new mappings created. Is there a logical reason why the "Create a Page Layout for each section option shouldn't work in this situation?

[marcel_str]

I also have exactly the same issue on importing a word-file. The problem is that I want to save time creating page layouts (as I am a newbie on Flare). If I deselect the layout option on inserting, the headers and footers logically aren't created. So what to do in that case!?

Hope there are more ideas to satisfy Flare in this.

[Christian1]

Hi all: Lori here. Am a newbie and am encountering this same issue. Will try the re-import after removing the page layout feature. Let's see what happens.

[straygoat]

Same problem here. I've used Flare for quite a while, but never for Word output until today. Worked fine when the Create page layouts for headers and footers option was disabled, so looks like a bug with that feature. That means creating the layouts manually, which hopefully won't be too bad.

Has anyone reported this problem to MadCap?

PS - I second the opinion that you should spend some time 'cleaning up' the topics after import. Flare works so much better with clean files. Previously, I imported a lot of chm files that had invalid HTML for nested bullet lists and it killed Flare repeatedly. Once they were fixed, Flare was fine.

[SoleWriter]

Hello all,

As another newbie to Flare I am also using the import function for the first time. I also received the same error message and found that deselecting the "Create page layouts for headers and footers" option seemed to fix the issue.

Does anyone have any more thoughts on why it is not possible to select this option?

Many thanks,
Emma