Dashes turned into symbols

[Calybos]

Has anyone seen this problem? A help topic using em dashes looks fine when compiled locally, but when moved to a QA server, the punctuation gets transformed into symbols.

[Paulie]

Hi there,

I have experienced this before. In my case, using the html number (—) instead of — fixed the problem, although it isn't an ideal solution (especially as Flare is prone to convert — back to — when a topic is saved).

[Calybos]

Good thought, but no dice. The dash-to-symbol problem is still happening.

Any other ideas, anyone?

[Paulie]

I'm clutching at straws now, but does the QA server have your preferred font installed? I'm thinking that if you have a font family hierarchy defined in your stylesheet, perhaps the QA server does not have the first font in the list installed, so it is falling back to the next available font which does not have a glyph for the em dash.

[Calybos]

Good thought--but the font is Arial. Definitely installed on the servers being used.

Further checking reveals that the same problem is happening with other punctuation, such as apostrophes, and in at least one case, bullets for a bulleted list. Note the different symbol that appears here.



The orange-text-on-hover is also making our devs and QA people fidget, but I'm told that's an issue with the latest Chrome browser patch.

[kwag_myers]

I've run into this before, usually when importing Word files or files from translators. I have a Visual Basic Script I developed to deal with the issue:

Code: Select all

Const ForReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

objStartFolder = InputBox("Enter file directory ending with \","File Directory")

Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(objStartFolder)

Set colFiles = objFolder.Files

For Each objFile In colfiles
fn = objFSO.GetFileName(objFile)
 
Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(objStartFolder & fn, ForReading)

strText = objFile.ReadAll
objFile.Close

strNewText = Replace(strText, "à", "à")
strNewText1 = Replace(strNewText, "á", "á")
strNewText2 = Replace(strNewText1, "â", "â")
strNewText3 = Replace(strNewText2, "ã", "ã")
strNewText4 = Replace(strNewText3, "ç", "ç")
strNewText5 = Replace(strNewText4, "è", "è")
strNewText6 = Replace(strNewText5, "é", "é")
strNewText7 = Replace(strNewText6, "ê", "ê")
strNewText8 = Replace(strNewText7, "ì", "ì")
strNewText9 = Replace(strNewText8, "í", "í")
strNewTextA = Replace(strNewText9, "î", "î")
strNewTextB = Replace(strNewTextA, "ñ", "ñ")
strNewTextC = Replace(strNewTextB, "ò", "ò")
strNewTextD = Replace(strNewTextC, "ó", "ó")
strNewTextE = Replace(strNewTextD, "ô", "ô")
strNewTextF = Replace(strNewTextE, "õ", "õ")
strNewTextG = Replace(strNewTextF, "ù", "ù")
strNewTextH = Replace(strNewTextG, "ú", "ú")
strNewTextI = Replace(strNewTextH, "û", "û")
strNewTextJ = Replace(strNewTextI, "Í", "Í")
strNewTextK = Replace(strNewTextJ, "º", "º")
strNewTextL = Replace(strNewTextK, " ", " ")
strNewTextM = Replace(strNewTextL, "ï", "ï")
strNewTextN = Replace(strNewTextM, "’", "’")
strNewTextO = Replace(strNewTextN, "À", "À")
strNewTextP = Replace(strNewTextO, "É", "É")
strNewTextQ = Replace(strNewTextP, "°", "°")
strNewTextR = Replace(strNewTextQ, "«", "«")
strNewTextS = Replace(strNewTextR, "»", "»")
strNewTextT = Replace(strNewTextS, "œ", "œ")
strNewTextU = Replace(strNewTextT, "'", "'")


Set objFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(objStartFolder & fn, ForWriting)
objFile.WriteLine strNewTextT
objFile.Close

Next

MsgBox "Ta Da! \0/" & strMsg, vbInformation, "Done!"

Paste this code into WordPad and save it with a .vbs extension. Then double-click the file and enter the full file directory of your Content folder (remember to end it with a back-slash "\").

[Calybos]

Huh! And here's where I disappoint you with my utter ignorance of all things coding.

This 'script' file--should I send this over to the developers along with the help files for deploying wherever and however they do it? What path should they enter--the final location on the server? And will they need to re-run this thing every time the help is updated?'

[SteveS]

I'm guessing you have to paste the code into a visual basic module in Word and run the code (in Word) prior to importing into the Flare.

It looks as if it is a simple find and replace macro.

Kwag?

[kwag_myers]

Correct Steve, almost. I'm assuming this issue is with the topic files in the Content folder of the Flare project and your screen shots are from Flare's XML Editor. If you paste my script into NotePad and save it with a .vbs extension, you can run the script by double-clicking the file (no need for Word). When you run the script, a dialog opens asking for the file directory. The easiest way to enter this is to open the Content folder of the project, right-click the address bar, select Copy as text, and paste into the dialog. It should look something like this: C:\Users\your.name\Documents\HelpProjectName\Content. Then add a back slash and click OK. Another dialog displays when the script is done. Then you can open the topic files in Flare to verify the problem has been resolved.

[Calybos]

Just got an official 'fix' from Madcap tech support. It involves adding a registry value to the Flare application (via RegEdit) and then rebuilding the help.

Start > RegEdit > HKEY_CURRENT_USER > MadCap Software > Flare > New String Value.
Name: SaveXmlWithBom
Value: True

Thanks for the help, everyone.