HTML5/WebHelp image filename corruption

[simonjatkinson]

Hi,

I have been trying to consolidate approximately ten project search path image folders into one.

I followed the process of exporting a .hmxz to HTML5/WebHelp to obtain a consolidated images folder. But during that process, a lot of image files were renamed to this style:

hmfile_hash_03fa3c0a.png

When I added the resultant "images" folder back into the search path, the H+M document did not recognize these filenames, and this obviously resulted in many missing images.

Next, I went to the source hmxz to publish as Word RTF. This process did not change the filenames.

So, is it advisable to export only to Word RTF to consolidate image files, or to follow both HTML5 and Word RTF to ensure all the images are consolidated...and ensure there are no illegal characters or spaces in filenames? After reading the forums, I noticed that these could be the problem.

Best regards,
Simon

[Tim Green]

Hi Simon,

But during that process, a lot of image files were renamed to this style:

This only happens on export and only to image filenames that aren't compatible with HTML. Unlike local operations on computers, where the operating systems like Windows and macOS now successfully hide the fact that filenames containing spaces and special characters are very problematic, web servers don't and can't do this, for a number of quite complex reasons. So Help+Manual is forced to give the file a new name that will be compatible, otherwise your images wouldn't display in your output.

Filenames containing spaces, umlauts, accented characters, many punctuation characters and others simply don't work on the Web. If you want to be safe you need to observe some simple rules that are stricter than necessary, but ensure that your filenames will always work:

• No spaces
• No accented characters, umlauts or punctuation characters except - and _
• No non-alphanumeric characters
• only English/Latin a..z, A..Z, 0..9.
• Don't start a filename with a number

When I added the resultant "images" folder back into the search path, the H+M document did not recognize these filenames, and this obviously resulted in many missing images.

That's happening because Help+Manual doesn't touch or rename your original image files, only the exported ones. If you then try to use the exported ones as original images, their names don't match the ones in the references to them in your project, and Help+Manual can't find them.

You need to locate the original image files and use those instead.