MadCap Software Forums

Hello. Here at work I am compiling Word source documents into manuals and I am using the Word/PDF output target as well as the HTML (.chm) output target. I am using D2H version 4.0.0.1396 from 2016, Word 2016 (16.0.5227.1000) 32 bit and Windows 10 Enterprise (10.0.19042).

The issue I have is only related to the .chm output target; I can build the Word/PDF output target without problems. When building the .chm output, I get the message: Fatal Word error occurred: The remote procedure call failed. Additionally: The RPC server is unavailable.

I have narrowed the root cause of the problem down to being arrows and lines drawn on a canvas in a Word source file (see the attached picture if you want). But I have been able to build the .chm output target before (in June this year) with the exact same file which is now giving me the problem. I can duplicate the problem using other source files that have the same types of arrows and lines drawn on a canvas, so it’s not “one bad file”.

I am thinking something must have been changed somewhere; I’m guessing an (automatic) update in Word or Windows, as I have not updated Doc2help. To see if it would fix the problem, I just had a repair run of the Office package made, but the problem persists. The original now “problem” files are .doc files; changing the name or the format to .docx does not change anything (but if I remove the before mentioned arrows and lines drawn on a canvas all is good).

Any ideas? Thanks in advance folks.
Stig

Hi Stig,

I'm sorry for my late reply, and sorry once more, I don't understand your last picture with the arrows.
The error code is not self explaining. I assume that it's something with your templates.
I suggest to do the following:
1. create a new project, based upon one of the appropriate templates provided by MadCap in their dropdown list.
2. Compile its simple contents, i.e.
chapter 1 (H1)
Topic 1 (H2)
Insert your text here. (Body text)

If that works without any problems, assign your templates to this project (one by one!!) and see whether it still works.