The importer needs to know how to deal with the different parts of HTML topic pages. You can improve the import performance with the import options settings.

Topic header:
Getting the header information from the <title> tag will usually work. If your topics have a separate header block you may need to specify a different tag. If in doubt display the CHM file, right-click on one of its pages and examine the source code with View Source.

Topic body:
Specify a <table> or <div> tag with a specific ID only if you know that is used to identify your body content. Otherwise use the default setting.

Ignore internal folders:
Help & Manual does not use internal folders in CHM files, all files are stored on the same level. If the CHM file contains internal folders the folder names will normally be prefixed to the topic IDs of the imported topics to prevent name conflicts. You can turn this option off if you are sure that there are no name conflicts caused by files with the same names stored in different folders.

Single-column tables:
Some topic pages are enclosed in single-cell/single-column tables, which can cause undesirable results when you import them. You can solve this problem with the option for converting such tables to single paragraphs.

Import tags and labeled elements as anchors:
If you you know the HTML files you are importing contain tags and labeled elements with name= attributes that you want to use as anchors you can make sure that they are converted to anchors (jump targets) with this setting.

Import invisible block elements (and make them visible):
Normally block elements hidden with the display=none attribute are considered to be not part of a page. This setting enables you to import these elements and switches them to visible. (Invisible block elements are not directly supported in Help & Manual).

Overwrite existing topics:
This is only displayed when you are importing into an existing Help & Manual project. If you select it, it will overwrite any existing topics in your project with imported topics that have the same IDs. Use with caution!

Popup topics file:
In CHM help popup topics are stored in a special plain-text file inside the CHM. Normally this has a standard name (CSHelp.txt) but if you know that the file you are importing uses a different name you can select or enter it here.

There are no special settings for importing Winhelp files.

You will get much better results if you import Winhelp project source files (.hpj project file and other accompanying files). Compiled .hlp files do not contain all the information needed for recreating Winhelp projects.

There are no special settings in the import wizard for importing RTF files. However, you do need to plan the content of your RTF files in order to get the best results.

Save RTF files with Word before importing

If you experience problems with RTF files not created with Word try loading them into Word and then re-saving them before importing.

Automatic topic generation

The importer splits the contents of RTF files into topics automatically if possible, using one of two methods:

Standard Word Heading1 - Heading 9 styles:
If your RTF file uses the standard Word Heading 1 ... Heading 9 styles each heading with one of these styles will start a new topic. Subtopics will be created automatically on the basis of the heading levels. Each heading must be followed by at least one paragraph of text, otherwise it will be ignored.

Hard page breaks:
If your file does not use Heading 1 .. Heading 9 styles new topics are created at hard page breaks. No subtopics are created with this method.

Styles in RTF files

Styles used in RTF files are imported to your Help & Manual project. They remain attached to the text they were applied to in the RTF document and they are also added to your project styles list. you can start using them immediately after importing and you can also edit them in Write > Edit Styles.

Map styles to imported styles:
This option merges styles from the imported document with styles with the same name in your Help & Manual project.

Graphics in RTF files

Graphics embedded in RTF files do not have names, they only have sequential numbers, starting with 1 in every RTF file. This means that if you import two RTF files to separate projects their graphics will have identical names. This will cause conflicts if you ever want to use both projects in a modular project.

Solution 1: Import all RTF files to the same folder:
If you select the same output folder for all new projects created from RTF files the names of the imported images will be incremented automatically. You must use the compressed format (.hmxz) for saving your new projects when you use this method. A message will be displayed warning you that the folder you are saving to is not empty – this is OK.

Solution 2: Import all RTF files to a single project:
After importing the first RTF file to a new project with New, click on the File menu and select Import for the next files. The topics will be inserted at the current position in the TOC and the image file names will be incremented automatically.

You can import RoboHelp X5, X6, 7 and 8 projects.

Here too, the importer needs to know how to deal with the different parts of the HTML topic pages. You can improve the import performance with the import options settings.

Topic header:
Getting the header information from the <title> tag will usually work. If your topics have a separate header block you may need to specify a different tag. If in doubt check the HTML source code of the files in your RoboHelp project.

Single-column tables:
Some topic pages are enclosed in single-cell/single-column tables, which can cause undesirable results when you import them. You can solve these problems with the option for converting such tables to single paragraphs.

Graphics files:
The graphics files from the RoboHelp project are not imported to the new project directory. Instead, Help & Manual adds the current location(s) of the graphics files to the image folders list in the Configuration > Common Properties section of your project. You can move the image files after importing if you want – just change the folder entries in the Image Folders list accordingly after doing so and Help & Manual will then be able to find them.

With the exception of RTF files (see above), text imported from external sources is all tagged as "manually formatted" with inline formatting, not with styles. You can integrate this formatting into your Help & Manual stylesheet with the Create Style from Selection and Replace Styles functions.

For instructions see Replacing Formatting and Styles.