Bookmarks with spaces

[Gary Niemen]

When we imported our help system from FrontPage (yes, I know) into Flare - we inherited loads of bookmarks containing spaces. I know that Flare doesn't like that - so we will sort it. One thing that is strange though is that when we preview the page from within Flare, the bookmarks work. It is only when we publish to HTML Help that it doesn't work. Any thoughts around this? Also, are there any quick ways to get the bookmarks sorted - I ran Analyzer, but it doesn't seem to report on bookmarks with spaces.

[Madcap Guru]

You are going to have to bite the bullet and remove all the bookmarks with the spaces tin them.

[rob hollinger]

bookmarks with spaces in the names is a major problem in HTML Help.
They break up the URL links and cause the links to be broken.
I'm amazed it worked in WebHelp. I'm betting it opened the topic, but not to the bookmark. If that bookmark was at the bottom of the page, it wouldn't work.

Here is why:
In my topic I have the following book marks "Topic_Title" and "Topic Title":

Code: Select all

 <h1><a name="Topic_Title"></a>Topic Title<a name="Topic Title"></a></h1>

When I generate - spaces have to be converted to "%20" to preserve them in the HTML world.
Here is what the generated links look like:

Code: Select all

<a href="mytopic.htm#Topic_Title">Topic Title</a>
<a href="Tmytopic.htm#Topic%20Title">Topic Title</a>

Now you have broken links in your output. Browsers will generally load the page the bookmark is on even if it cannot find the bookmark by default.

The HTML Help compiler has a fit as you can see if you have spaces in your bookmark names.

Note:
What software allowed you to put those spaces in the bookmark names in the first place?

Rob

[Gary Niemen]

Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense.
The original application that allowed this was FrontPage.
And, yes I know, why did we build a help system using FrontPage

If you had this problem, how would you go about fixing it in Flare - what would be your procedure. I have some ideas myself, but I just want to check I am on the right track.