Problem with Save as RTF

[Michael]

I am making a Help document using Microsoft Help Workshop and not using HTML
Help Workshop for several reasons (problem with "What's this" button in
Access, I already wrote it in Word and did previous .hlp files, and I would
have to reformat all the HTML pages to match what I have in Word, I had
problems with popup topics, and more…)

Here is the question:

I saved my document as RTF using Word 2000, the resulting file size was
7000KB, and worked fine with Microsoft Help Workshop, with all my formatting
intact from the Word document. This was in my old computer.

In my new computer, I am using Word 2003. I took the same file from my old
computer and save the document as RTF. The resulting file size was 12000KB.
In Microsoft Help Workshop, some formatting was lost, but not if I open it in
Word.

Compatibility to Microsoft Word 97 was used in both cases.

If I take a saved document from Word 2003 back to Word 2000, the resulting
RTF file from Word 2000 is still good.

Why is that and how could I make a good RFT file in Word 2003?

I the mean time I am forced to make my RTF file in my old computer…


Thanks in advance,

Michael

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Michael,

You may want to also post this in the MS Help Authoring discussion group through the link below and include there the version of the
Help Workshop you're working with. MS basically has discontinued the use of the .HLP file type, and with Office 2007 has moved away
from the prior .CHM files as well to XML based help.

In general, the RTF spec version changes with each version of Word to incorporate new/changed features. An RTF parser, when
constructed according to the RTF spec <g>, should ignore the parts of the RTF encoding it doesn't 'understand'.

In Word 2003 you might want to see if using the
Save As Word 97-2003 & 6-95
with an RTF extension makes a difference. You might also want to see if running the document through Windows WordPad and saving as
RTF helps.

===============
I am making a Help document using Microsoft Help Workshop and not using HTML
Help Workshop for several reasons (problem with "What's this" button in
Access, I already wrote it in Word and did previous .hlp files, and I would
have to reformat all the HTML pages to match what I have in Word, I had
problems with popup topics, and more.)

Here is the question:

I saved my document as RTF using Word 2000, the resulting file size was
7000KB, and worked fine with Microsoft Help Workshop, with all my formatting
intact from the Word document. This was in my old computer.

In my new computer, I am using Word 2003. I took the same file from my old
computer and save the document as RTF. The resulting file size was 12000KB.
In Microsoft Help Workshop, some formatting was lost, but not if I open it in
Word.

Compatibility to Microsoft Word 97 was used in both cases.

If I take a saved document from Word 2003 back to Word 2000, the resulting
RTF file from Word 2000 is still good.

Why is that and how could I make a good RFT file in Word 2003?

I the mean time I am forced to make my RTF file in my old computer.


Thanks in advance,

Michael >>
--
Please let us know if this has helped,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

LINKS
A. Specific newsgroup/discussion group mentioned in this message:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.helpauthoring
or via browser:
http://microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/?dg=microsoft.public.helpauthoring

B. MS Office Community discussion/newsgroups via Web Browser
http://microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx
or
Microsoft hosted newsgroups via Outlook Express/newsreader
news://msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Michael]

Thank you for the prompt response!

I will try Save As Word 97-2003 & 6-95 with an RTF, and I will visit your
suggested web sites.

Thanks,

Michael