FW: FrameMaker7 to RoboHelp 5 - Online Help Files

[Carmen Robards]

Thank you so much for the reply.

The documentation talks about saving the FramMaker file as a MIF file and then importing it into RoboHelp.
Any thoughts on that?  As to what would be the best way.

Thank you,
Carmen Robards

________________________________
From: Roger Shuttleworth [mailto:rshuttleworth at avbasesystems.com]
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 6:41 AM
To: Carmen Robards
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: FW: FrameMaker7 to RoboHelp 5 - Online Help Files

Hello Carmen

Welcome to the Framers list! You'll find a lot of willing helpers here.

The software versions you mention are pretty old, so there may be few people who can give you specific guidance. I don't know whether RH5 can import FM files directly. If it can, that is your way to go. If it cannot, I would suggest:

 1.  Look in the FM help about saving your document to HTML. I believe you have the option to split the FM document into multiple HTML files whenever it encounters specific paragraph (heading) tags. These options are specified on a reference page called HTML Mapping or something similar.
 2.  If that reference page doesn't exist, you may have an option on the File menu, perhaps under Utilities, to set up HTML export options. Again, consult the help.
 3.  Once you have exported the HTML files, import them into your RoboHelp project.

Your other options would be:

 *   Investigate whether RH can import a Word document. If it can, save your FM document as RTF (I believe that in FM7 the Japanese RTF export was more reliable and faster), then open it in Word and resave it (as .doc, not .docx). Then import the Word doc into RH. Again, I assume you can break the doc into smaller HTML files based on Word styles.
 *   If the situation will arise again in future and you think it's worth it, consider upgrading to the Tech Communication Suite. In TCS, FM and RH are integrated so that you can link your FM docs into a RH project and create help directly.

As a first preparation step to all the above, ensure that your FM document uses consistent tagging with few or no overrides. And after you have converted, expect to have to do a fair amount of cleanup.

Hope this helps you. Feel free to post further questions or update the list on your progress.



Roger
Roger Shuttleworth
Technical Documentation
AV-BASE Systems Inc.
1000 Air Ontario Drive, Suite 200
London, Ontario
N5V 3S4
Tel. 519 691-0919 ext. 330
________________________________
From: Carmen Robards [mailto:carmenrobards at SkylineProducts.com]
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com]
Sent: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:09:25 -0500
Subject: FW: FrameMaker7 to RoboHelp 5 - Online Help Files
Hello,

Using RoboHelp Version 5 and FrameMaker 7 Unstructured

I would appreciate any information on the best way to convert a User Guide developed in FrameMaker 7 into RoboHelp for Online help
Of the same software.

Thank you, (new to the list)

Carmen Robards
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