This section examines ways you can investigate problems that might arise during the build process.
The Help compiler displays messages when it encounters errors in building the Help file. (Chapter 18, “Help Error Messages,” contains a list of messages that might appear during the build process.) Whenever possible, the compiler displays the name of the file that contains the error and the number that identifies the specific line of the Help project file or the topic that produced the error.
Because topics are not actually numbered, the topic number given with an error message refers to that topic’s sequential position in the RTF file (first topic, second topic, and so on). These numbers may be identical to the page numbers shown by your word processor, depending on the number of lines you have assigned to the hypothetical printed page. Remember that topics are separated by hard page breaks, even though there is no such thing as a “page” in the Help system.
A single error condition in the topic file can cause many error messages. For example, an incorrectly identified topic causes an error every time a jump term refers to the correct topic identifier. Such a mistake is easily fixed by correcting the footnote that contains the wrong context string. In general, if you get an error (for example, an unresolved jump), correct the error(s) and recompile.
Note:
An easy way to avoid build errors is to make sure that the compiler can access all the RTF files and all the graphic files needed to build the Help file.