Category: Adobe RoboHelp

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Adobe RoboHelp: Creating a TOC for Word and PDF Output

You can easily include a TOC for your RoboHelp online output by opening the default TOC and adding sections and pages as needed. The TOC works fine when you output Frameless or HTML5 content. However, if you output Word or PDF content, the default TOC will not work. What's the deal?

There are two types of TOC available in RoboHelp: Online and Book. The default TOC is an online TOC and only works with online output (Frameless, HTML5). If you want to output a Word doc or a PDF and include a TOC, you must create a Book TOC and add the TOC as "front matter."

Here's how to create a TOC for Word and/or PDF output and add the required front matter:

Select Table of Contents from the list of categories at the left of the Author tab.

Click the New Table of Contents icon.

NewTOC

In the New Table of Contents dialog box, select Book TOC and then click the Done button.

NewTOC

Add sections and pages to the TOC as you would normally do.

TOCwithContent

From the top of the new TOC, click the Insert Front Matter icon and choose TOC page.

FrontMatter

FrontMatterAdded

Select the Output tab, select Output Presets, and then click the New Preset icon.

CreatePreset

Choose Word from the Type drop-down menu, give the layout an appropriate name, and click the Done button.

CreatePreset

With the Word preset open, specify an output path.

On the Contents tab, select your Book TOC from the Table of Contents drop-down menu.

WordOutputBookTOC

Save the project and then output the Word content.

You will likely see two Word alerts. The first one allows Word to create the TOC from the RoboHelp project. Click Yes.

WordAlert

The second alert allows you to ensure the entire TOC is accurate. Select Update entire table and then click OK.

UpdateTOC

The TOC is added to the Word output.

FinishedTOC

Are you looking for RoboHelp training or mentoring? We've got you covered. 

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Adobe RoboHelp 2022: Update 1 Now Available

Adobe recently released the first update for RoboHelp 2022. The update contains several improvements, including a redesign of the CSS editor, table header row styles, an additional field for topic notes, a collapsible right panel, integration with DeepL translator, and custom metadata for PDFs. There are fixes for Word import and security-related issues as well.

To get the update, start RoboHelp and choose Help > Check for Updates.

Adobe RoboHelp 2022 Update 1

Here's a list of what's new and changed:

And here's a list of the bugs that were fixed.

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Adobe RoboHelp 2022: Reusing Image Alt Text and Titles

When adding images to a RoboHelp project, it's a best practice to add Alternate Text and an Image title to every image.

Drug_Topic

RoboHelp-Alt-Text

Alternate Text serves two purposes. The alternate text appears in the published output if the image cannot be displayed to the user for any reason. For visually impaired users, assistive devices such as screen readers read the Alternate Text out loud, making alternate text critical if you're trying to meet or exceed Section 508 standards.

An Image title is a brief description of the image. This title appears when the user runs their mouse over the image.

If you plan to reuse an image in multiple project topics, I've created a short video demonstrating how to repurpose the image, the image title, and its alternate text all in one shot. (Spoiler alert: the copy and paste command is your best friend!)

Looking for RoboHelp training or support? We've got you covered with our classes and virtual mentoring.

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Adobe RoboHelp: Searching Made Even Better

When I teach RoboHelp, I tell my students and the three main areas users will rely on to get help in a help system are the table of contents (TOC), Index, and Search. Of the three, Search wins the award for being the most used feature.

One thing to avoid in a TOC is bloat–a TOC that has so much content that it's difficult, if not impossible, to find anything quickly. Because users will first rely on Search, keeping the content on the TOC streamlined is a great idea. However, if a topic is not on the TOC or referenced by a link or cross reference by something on the TOC, the topic won't be searchable. This presents a conundrum. If you want to keep your TOC streamlined, but the TOC is tied to Search, what's a RoboHelp developer to do?

The solution is to create an extra section on the TOC. Put anything you want to be searchable in that section. (You can add all of your topics if you'd like.)

Adobe-robohelp-section

On the Content Properties panel, select Hide in output.

Adobe-robohelp-not-in-toc

Generate the output. The "hidden" TOC content will not appear on the TOC, but will be searchable.

Check out this video demonstration of the process.

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Adobe RoboHelp: Microcontent

One of the most powerful features in any Help System is Search. In my experience, more people will use the Search feature to quickly try to find answers to questions than will use the Table of Contents or Index combined.

Search has been an essential part of RoboHelp's output for years. If a searched word is contained within a topic, and the topic is included or referenced on the TOC, the topic will be shown to the user. However, it's possible to use RoboHelp Microcontent feature and allow the user to pose questions to the Search feature using full sentences. You can prepare for those questions and create short bursts of information–microcontent–and have that content appear onscreen.

Here a quick video that shows Microcontent in action.

And if you're looking for vILT classes on RoboHelp, look no further!

 

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ADOBE ROBOHELP: Master Projects and Merging Help Content

You've got two RoboHelp projects. The projects have been maintained independently for years, but now you need to combine them.
 
One strategy for combining multiple RoboHelp projects into one is to simply import all of the assets from one project into the other. If you go that route, one of the original project(s) would no longer be needed.
 
However, if you want to keep the projects working as independent projects but have them share content, a TOC, and an Index, you've created the perfect scenario for project merging.
 
To merge projects, create child RoboHelp projects as you normally would. In this example, I've created two child projects. One project is about dogs. The second project is about cats. The goal is to combine the child projects into a third project called Cats and Dogs. The third project is the master or parent project.
 
In the image below you can see a sample Cats project I created with placeholder content. The project includes a small Table of Contents. Because this project is going to be added to a master project, let's call it Child 1.
 
 
In the image below you can see a simple Dogs project. It also has placeholder content and a simple Table of Contents. This is Child 2.
 
 
Now for the master or parent project. A master project does not need much content. Keep in mind that its main role is to allow you to combine content from child projects.
 
 
To allow the master project to combine assets from child projects, I went to the Table of Contents panel and clicked New Merged Project.
 
 
In the Merged Project dialog box, I opened each child project. You can see in the image below that I've loaded the Cats project. I repeated the process for the Dogs project.
 
 
On the Table of Contents for the master project, the child projects are shown as merged project icons (as shown in the image below).
 
 
Generate and Publish the master project.
 
When you browse to the published destination, you'll see that RoboHelp has automatically created a mergedProjects folder. This folder is key. All that you need to do now is publish each chlid project into this folder.
 
 
Back in each child project, access the Publish settings, create a new Server, and publish each child project to the mergedProjects folder for the master project.
 
 
 
When you open the start page for the parent project (from the Publish destination folder), the three projects have been merged into one. On the TOC shown below, the first page is the only topic that was in the master project. The remaining content on the TOC came from the child projects.
 
 
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Kevin Siegel is the founder and president of IconLogic, Inc. He has written hundreds of step-by-step computer training books on applications such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe RoboHelp, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia. Kevin spent five years in the U.S. Coast Guard as an award-winning photojournalist and has three decades’ experience as a trainer, publisher, technical writer, and eLearning developer. Kevin is a Certified Master Trainer (CMT), Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+), Certified Online Professional Trainer (COTP), and a frequent speaker at trade shows and conventions.
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ADOBE ROBOHELP 2019: The Fix is In!

Adobe recently released RoboHelp 2019, a totally reimagined, rebuilt, re-everything RoboHelp. If you're a veteran RoboHelp user, I'm thinking you'll find the overhauled interface to be intuitive and significantly cleaner than previous versions of RoboHelp.
 

b

 
In RoboHelp 2019, there are far fewer toolbars or tools. And while there are still some dialog boxes in RoboHelp 2019, much of the topic formatting work can be performed in panels to the left and right of the application window.
 
 
While Adobe has spent significant time streamlining RoboHelp's interface and development process, there are some awesome enhancements as well. One of my favorite features is Auto Fix Content. Although it is not necessary for you to know HTML to create RoboHelp projects, knowing a little HTML can pay off when imported content causes trouble because of misplaced or missing HTML tags.
 
I imported an HTML file into a project. I then opened the topic expecting to see it in the Author window as shown in the first image above (where you see the text and the heading About This Guide).
 
What I didn't know prior to importing the HTML file was that there were HTML code errors in the file. While the file imported without issue, upon attempting to edit the file, it automatically opened in HTML View.
 
In the HTML View, I noticed that there was an error icon next to line 20 as shown below.
 
 
I ran my mouse over the error icon and was alerted that the HTML file wasn't following conventional HTML rules (where tags must be paired). I'm comfortable with HTML and could have easily fixed the problem myself by adding the missing tag. However, if HTML isn't your thing, you'll love this awesome feature.
 
 
From the top of the HTML View window, I clicked the Auto Fix Content icon. 
 
In a blink, RoboHelp automatically fixed all of the errors. (For instance, in the image below, a missing paragraph end-tag was added on line 18.)

***
 
Need to learn Adobe RoboHelp? Want to save on travel? Consider our live, online, and 100% interactive and hands-on RoboHelp classes. (If you prefer onsite training, send us an email. We can come to you!)
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ADOBE ROBOHELP: Stay Away Mighty Google

by Willam van Weelden, COTP
 
I recently received the following email from a concerned RoboHelp user:
 
Our [help system] documents are available on the internet if you search for them. Is there a way to keep them private so they don’t show up on Google?
 
The issue here is that the RoboHelp user created content in RoboHelp and then published the output files to their web server. Using IconLogic as an example, if IconLogic published their internal policies and procedures to the publicly-facing IconLogic website, it would certainly be easy for employees to access the content by typing something like the following example URL into any web browser: http://www.iconlogic.com/policies.htm. Of course, it would also be easy for non-IconLogic employees to access the content through the same URL. Additionally, over time Google will index the pages; and content found within the private Help System will appear in Google search results.
 
If you don't want your Help System content to appear via a Google search, there are a few options to consider:
  • Use a robots.txt file to stop Google indexing your content.
  • Protect your content on the server side.
 
The protection method is ideal. If you set up access controls on your server, only authorized users will be able to access the content. Search engines or anonymous users won't be able to view your content. Getting protection going will require access to be set up on your server because the RoboHelp output itself doesn't contain any option to secure access. The options available depend on the web server you are using. For Apache, you can find the options here. You will have to work with your web hosting company or IT team to discuss options and determine the best course of action.
 
An alternative is to use RoboHelp Server, which contains access control. The options are somewhat limited though.
 
A last, quick, alternative is to use robots.txt to tell Google to not index your content. This will help you to make the content harder to discover. Keep in mind that a robots.txt is a courtesy of search engines to prevent indexing. It does not secure your content in any way. And some crawlers may still choose to ignore the directive and still index your site.
 
Which method works best depends on your goal. If your goal is to keep the content private for authorized users only, your only recourse is to limit access on the server side.
 
***
If you're looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp, consider my highly-interactive live, online beginner class or my advanced content reuse class.
 
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Willam van Weelden is a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP), veteran Help Author, RoboHelp consultant, co-author of IconLogic's "Adobe RoboHelp": The Essentials workbook, and technical writer based in the Netherlands. He is an Adobe Community Professional, ranking him among the world's leading experts on RoboHelp. Willam’s specialties are HTML5 and RoboHelp automation. Apart from RoboHelp, Willam also has experience with other technical communications applications such as Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.
 
 
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ADOBE ROBOHELP: Getting Around Preview Errors

by Willam van Weelden, COTP

RoboHelp is an awesome help authoring tool. However, even the best tools misbehave.

While working with RoboHelp, you are likely to come across error message from time to time. For instance, atsome point you'll likely be tasked with customizing a Screen Layout.

You can access RoboHelp's Screen Layout Editor by visiting the Output Setup pod. (Projects > Pods > Output Setup). From there, expand the Screen Layouts and double-click the layout you want to edit.

You can make all kinds of changes to a layout including modifying its colors and images. During the editing process, it’s reasonable to assume that you’ll want to see a Preview. For this, the Screen Layout Editor has a Save and Preview button in the bottom right of the dialog box.

When attempting to show the preview, you'll likely see the following error message:

 
 
If you encounter the error, don’t panic. The error is caused by an internal script error; you haven't done anything wrong. You can simply click the Yes button to continue. (If the same message appears again, click Yes again.)

The preview will open. Unfortunately, if you click anything within the Preview window (such as a different topic), the same error message will appear.

I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to avoid all of these error message. Go ahead and click the Save and Preview button. Then, from the upper-left of the Preview, click the View with button and select your browser of choice. The preview will open in your browser without additional error messages.

 
 
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If you'd like to learn how to use RoboHelp, check out Willam's live, online RoboHelp classes.
 
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Willam van Weelden is a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP), veteran Help Author, RoboHelp consultant, and technical writer based in the Netherlands. He is an Adobe Community Professional, ranking him among the world's leading experts on RoboHelp. Willam’s specialties are HTML5 and RoboHelp automation. Apart from RoboHelp, Willam also has experience with other technical communications applications such as Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.
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ADOBE ROBOHELP 2017: Image Thumbnails

by Willam Van Weeldon

While Adobe's chief concern when releasing RoboHelp 2017 was improving the Responsive HTML5 output (with search suggestions and improved accessibility), there were other nice enhancements. This week I’d like to focus on Thumbnails (small images that expand when clicked).

Here are step-by-step instructions for adding Thumbnails to your RoboHelp project.

Image Styles

To begin using Thumbnails, you need to first have at least one image style in the project. 

1. Open a style sheet for editing.

2. Right-click Image and choose New.

3. Give style a name and press ENTER. (In my example, I created a style named thumbnail.)

 
 

4. Click OK to close the style sheet editor.


Apply the Image Style to Images in the Project

1. Open the Styles and Formatting pod (Project > Pods > Styles and Formatting).

2. Using the drop-down menu at the right top of the pod, choose Image Styles.
 

3. Select the image you want to turn into a thumbnail.

4. Double-click the thumbnail style in the Styles and Formatting pod to assign the style to the image.

5. Save the project.
 

Note: The image doesn’t turn into a thumbnail at this point. I have just set up the thumbnails.


Configuring Thumbnails

Once you have assigned the style to your images, you can set up your output to include thumbnails.

1. Open the settings of your Responsive HTML5 output.

2. In the Manage Thumbnails section, type the name of the image styles that need to be thumbnails.
 

3. Set the width and the height of the thumbnail for your output.

4. Click Save and Generate.

In the generated output, every image with the image style assigned via Manage Thumbnails is now interactive…
 
… and expands when clicked:
***
 

If you'd like to learn how to use Adobe RoboHelp, check out our live, online, and very interactive RoboHelp classes.
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Willam van Weelden is a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP), veteran Help Author, RoboHelp consultant, and technical writer based in the Netherlands. He is an Adobe Community Professional, ranking him among the world's leading experts on RoboHelp. Willam’s specialties are HTML5 and RoboHelp automation. Apart from RoboHelp, Willam also has experience with other technical communications applications such as Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.