Help-PDF output giving error

[TeSol]

Hi,

My deadline is tomorrow and I am struggling to get the PDF output. The error I am getting is "Build failed. The specified path, filename or both are too long....."
I've successfully built the Webhelp target using the same path.
I have also specified the output folder for the pdf as D:\ and given the filename as Manual.pdf to shorten it as much as possible. But no success.
I use Madcap Flare 2019.

Please help...its urgent and I am at my wit's end

Regards,
TeSol

[ChoccieMuffin]

If you're building FROM a location that's quite deep, that might be the problem. Just to check, close Flare and drag your Flare project folder to the top level of your machine (e.g. D:) and kick off the build from there. It's possible your topics have quite long names and that can be the cause of the problem, as Flare also creates a \Temporary directory and that can push things over the limit.

Anyway, give my suggestion a go and see what happens - I hope it gets you out of your fix, so you can then work to solve it more permanently without the pressure of a release. Good luck!

[TeSol]

Thanks and apologies for the late reply. COVID really has pushed lot of stuff out of our minds! But that's no excuse for not acknowledging your help.
I didnt do what you suggested - instead I changed the output folder alone to Desktop and it worked!
Doing what you suggested would have been the next step in case that failed.
Problem was resolved but has now reappeared with a Word output in a different project. I have posted a question regarding the same.

Thanks for your help.
Regards

[doloremipsum]

As a note, Flare uses the /Output/User/Temporary folder (or similar) to build all of the outputs. I believe that just specifying a custom output directory might not be enough - you might need to grab your entire Flare project and put it in a top-level directory somewhere.

[Folkie]

Only just spotted this (almost two years down the line), but I've previously solved this error by shortening some very long image filenames in my project. If just one filename is too long (when you take the complete path of the file structure into account) the build can fail, so it's good practice to keep filenames short if possible to try to avoid this.

[doc_guy]

Only just spotted this (almost two years down the line), but I've previously solved this error by shortening some very long image filenames in my project. If just one filename is too long (when you take the complete path of the file structure into account) the build can fail, so it's good practice to keep filenames short if possible to try to avoid this.

Exactly. Including image file names and folder names. They all count towards the limit. I don't know what the limit is, but on my machine, the build is done here:

c:\bitbucket\zzzdocs\Output\Paul.Pehrson\Temp\TargetName\ and then the file names in their respective folders. Here is one with an actual URL from my project:

c:\bitbucket\zzzdocs\Output\Paul.Pehrson\Temp\TopNav2022\Content\Resources\Images\UX-widgets-and-menu-bars\UI-Menu-Bar-17-2.png

That's almost 130 characters. If you have a deep folder structure in your /Content/ folder, or if your project is deep on your drive, it gets worse. Imagine:

c:\Users\Paul-Pehrson\Documents\My_Projects\zzdocs\Output\Paul.Pehrson\Temp\TopNav2022\Content\Resources\Images\UX-widgets-and-menu-bars\UI-Menu-Bar-17-2.png

That's over 150-ish characters.

The content isn't copied to the output folder specified in the target settings until after it finishes the build in the /temp/ folder listed above. So that is where the file name counts make the difference between a working and a failed build. I would guess that the character limit is somewhere in the 250 range, so you do have quite a bit of room.

If you are looking for your longest file names, go into the Content Explorer and use the expand all button (plus icon in the menu). Then scroll through all your content to see where you have deep folder paths, long file name, and long folder names. They all count towards the limit.

[Psider]

If you want a file listing so you can get a bit of a visual idea of your longest file path, the following will generate a text file in the project folder which contains a list of all the files in your project, including the full path to each file.

1. Navigate to the project folder in File Explorer.
2. Click in the Location bar at the top of the window, type cmd then press Enter. The Command window opens.
3. Type the following and press Enter:
dir *.* /s /b > projectlisting.txt

dir: list files and folders
*.*: all files
/s: including in subfolders
/b: don't include heading and summary information
> projectlisting.txt: output to the specified file (you can change the 'projectlisting' to whatever you want).

A text file is generated in the project folder from step 1. I like to copy the file contents into Excel for easier viewing.

[doloremipsum]

Thanks @Psider, that's a very neat trick!

[SteveS]

You can copy

Code: Select all

dir *.* /s /b > projectlisting.txt

to a text file and change the file extension to .bat

Place the .bat (for batch) file in any folder (directory) you want to query and double click it.

[Psider]

Thanks @Psider, that's a very neat trick!

Something to be grateful to Win3.1 for. :p

You can copy to a text file and change the file extension to .bat
Place the .bat (for batch) file in any folder (directory) you want to query and double click it.

Nice.

[trent the thief]

You could also use View > File List.