When I use a program frequently, I tend to pin the program to my Taskbar for quick access. If you've never pinned an application to the Taskbar, it's a simple process. On Windows 7, click the Start button on the Taskbar and find the program you'd like to pin. Instead of starting the application, right-click the application's icon and choose Pin to Taskbar. From that point forward, you will be able to start the application by clicking its shortcut on the Taskbar.
In the image below, you can see icons for applications that I use every day, and have pinned to my Taskbar. (For instance, at the far right you can see Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.)
Of course, I use Adobe RoboHelp every day too. And I was bummed out when I went to pin RoboHelp to my Taskbar and did not see the Pin to Taskbar menu item. What gives? Was there something within RoboHelp's code that prevented pinning? Was my Taskbar somehow inadequate? Perhaps there is a limit to the number of applications I am allowed to pin?
It turns out that the issue is quite simple. According to the folks at Adobe (who I contacted about this), applications containing the word "help" cannot be pinned to the Taskbar. Since RoboHelp is called, well… RoboHelp, that's the end of that.
Not so fast…
While applications with the word "Help" in the name cannot be pinned to the Taskbar, the folks at Adobe told me that it's simple enough to change RoboHelp's name on the computer (without fouling up anything at all).
Find RoboHelp's application icon by clicking Start (just as you would any other application). Once again, don't start the application. Instead, right-click the icon and choose Properties. On the General tab, change the name to something similar to RoboHelp HTML, except don't use Help. I changed my RoboHelp icon to simply RoboHTML.
After clicking the OK button, I was able to right-click the RoboHTML icon and, eureka, Pin toTaskbar was an available menu item. I am happy to report that RoboHelp (I mean RoboHTML) is now in its rightful home, alongside Captivate and FrameMaker.
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Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp quickly? I offer a live, online class covering RoboHelp once each month. It's a two-day class, and provides an awesome jump-start to using this fantastic tool.
Just a reminder that there’s another, more advanced method for getting around that “help” terminology restriction – just edit the internal restricted list through a Registry edit (regedit). Look at the key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileAssociation\AddRemoveNames to edit the list.
Just a reminder that there’s another, more advanced method for getting around that “help” terminology restriction – just edit the internal restricted list through a Registry edit (regedit). Look at the key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileAssociation\AddRemoveNames to edit the list.
Just a reminder that there’s another, more advanced method for getting around that “help” terminology restriction – just edit the internal restricted list through a Registry edit (regedit). Look at the key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileAssociation\AddRemoveNames to edit the list.