Category: Help Authoring

We are proud to announce that our totally interactive, totally online RoboHelp HTML 6 course just went live.

• Create a New Project
• Explore the RoboHelp Interface
• Project Settings
• Topic Properties and Project Folders
• Importing Files
• Edit a Topic
• Importing PDFs
• Create a Table of Contents
• Spell Check
• Create and Edit Links
• Add Graphics
• Apply a CSS
• Apply Styles
• Creating Indexes
• Edit the Glossary
• Conditional Build Tags
• Publishing Projects
• Compliant Output
• Creating Reports
• Multiple File Find and Replace
• Tables
• Create a CSS
• Edit a CSS
• Create Font Sets
• See Also Keywords
• Skins
• Templates, Headers and Footers
• User Defined Variables
• Printed Documents and PDFs
• Merging Projects

Click here to learn more about the course and to test drive a few of the lessons for free.

During the recent STC conference in Minneapolis, Akshay Madan, Adobe Product Manager for RoboHelp, previewed the next version of RoboHelp–Adobe RoboHelp 7.

Among the Many Exciting Enhancements:

• Support for MS Vista and Office 2007
• The ability to have more than one topic open at one time
• A totally retooled user interface (UI) that features customizable panels
• You will be able to create multiple TOCs for your Single Source Layouts
• You will be able to create Snippets–reusable blocks of text and or graphics
• There’s going to be improved FrameMaker support. You will now be able to import FrameMaker files into RoboHelp and keep such goodies as variables and conditional text.
• And you can add Breadcrumbs that will show users where they are in your Help system

Keep in mind that the features mentioned here are from a pre-beta version of RoboHelp 7 and that things are likely to change. Even so, if you’re a RoboHelp fan like me, this should get the blood pumping!

• RH6 HTML crashes when a build expression is used when generating AND the topics include one or more tables with merged cells in the end column

• WebHelp will not compile if links in the TOC to external topics are relative, including links to child projects in a merged WebHelp setup

Adobe has just reported that both problems have been fixed and a patch is available. To fix the problems, Adobe made changes to two DLL files (BuildTagExpr.dll and MpjSingleSource.dll).

Assuming RoboHelp 6 is installed on your computer, here are the instructions for downloading the DLLs and applying the patch:

1. Download the DLLs here (scroll down and click the link at the bottom of the page). The DLLs are in a zipped file.

2. Open the ZIP file and install the DLLs to your desktop

3. Copy the two DLL’s on your desktop to the clipboard

4. Exit RoboHelp

5. Paste both DLLs in the RoboHelp HTML folder where RoboHelp was installed on your computer (overwrite the two DLLs when prompted).

1. Open a topic
2. Highlight a word or phrase intended to be the hyperlink
   and click the Insert HyperLink tool on the Objects toolbar

   

3. Select a Destination topic from the Select destination (file or URL) area

   

4. Click OK

1. Open the Style Sheets folder on the Project pane
2. Double-click CSS file
3. Scroll down in the list of styles and select Hyperlink (Unvisited)

   This is the color of a link before your user has clicked it.

4. Click Modify
   
5. Click Format and choose Font
6. Select any Font color you like   
7. Click OK
   
8. Click OK again
9. Click Close

Follow the same steps to modify the Hyperlink (visited) color, which is the color of a link after your user has clicked it.

RoboHelp can merge several independent projects into one, essentially creating a massive Help system from any number of small, independent RoboHelp projects.

Why merge projects? You might find yourself working with a team of Help authors who are working on different parts of a common project. If you create a merged project, you can import other projects into yours. When generated, the merged project will share the TOC, Index and Search panel of all of the projects.

Here’s how you create a merged project:

1. Ensure you have direct access to 2 or more projects
2. Determine which of the projects will serve as the Master Project (the project that the other projects will be imported into)
3. Open the Master Project
4. Go to the TOC pane and click the New Merged Project tool

   

5. Click the Browse button to the right of the Merged Project dialog box and open the XPJ file for your Sub Project

   

   The Sub Project will appear on the TOC of the Master Project as a Merged Project icon. You can move the icon up or down as you see fit. When you Publish the Sub Projects and then Generate the Master Projects, the TOC entries from each Sub Project will replace the Merged Project icon.

   

6. Open the Master Project and Generate it
7. Open each Sub Project, generate and then Publish into the mergedProject folder within the Master Project’s SSL folder.

If you open the Master Project and View it after publishing each of the Sub Project’s, you will see that the Master Project has been merged with the Sub Projects.

1. Click inside any table cell
2. Choose Format > Borders and Shading
3. Click the Padding button
4. Specify the Padding you want for the Top, Bottom, Left and/or Right

   

5. Click OK
6. Click OK

The Multi-File Find and Replace tool, found on RoboHelp’s Tools pane, gives you the ability to change phrases or words for multiple topics in a project.

Follow these steps to learn how to use the Multi- File Find and Replace tool:

1. Click the Tools button beneath the Project pane
2. Double-click Multi-File Find and Replace

   The Multi-File Find and Replace options appear.

3. Type a phrase you would like to replace into the Find area
4. Type a word or phrase you would like to replace into the Replace area
5. Click the Browse button and open the folder containing your project
6. Click the Find button

   The project will be searched and, if they exist, every occurrence of the word you typed will be found.

7. Click the Replace All button
8. Click OK
9. Click Close

Click here to learn more about RoboHelp 6 HTML.

I was teaching a RoboHelp 6 HTML class recently and came across the following error message when attempting to edit the properties of project topics (it’s an error I had never seen before).

Clicking OK to the message proved lethal (not that there was an alternative). The topic(s) are unceremoniously deleted from the project and thrown into the Recycle Bin. The Project Manager then shows the topic(s) as missing. Ouch! You can fix the immediate problem by removing the poor topic from the Recycle Bin and re-importing the topic back into the project.

But what was causing the problem? Long story short, the training center I was working with had RoboHelp X5 installed prior to class. When the tech installed RoboHelp 6 on every machine, he was prompted to remove the old version of RoboHelp—which he did. However, the old RoboSource version control software was still installed.

I removed the old RoboSource software (via Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs) and the problem went away for every PC in the room.

The person who installed the new RoboHelp software incorrectly assumed that the installer would remove all components of RoboHelp, including RoboEngine and RoboSource, which is not the case.

The moral to the story: RoboHelp HTML X5 and the new RoboHelp 6 HTML cannot coexist on the same machine. Prior to installing RoboHelp HTML 6, uninstall RoboHelp HTML X5 and all of its supporting software including RoboEngine, RoboSource and RoboPDF.

We are proud to announce that our newest book, "Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 6 HTML," is just about ready to ship.

RoboHelp is the industry standard for Help authoring. It’s the preferred program if you are a Help author, technical writer, or programmer tasked with creating Help systems for desktop or Web-based applications.

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Simply put, HTML is a formatting language. You put codes (markups) inside text files so that they can be read by browsing software. Currently, the most popular browsing program is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

RoboHelp 6 HTML has the letters HTML in its name; therefore, many people think that RoboHelp HTML is strictly an HTML authoring tool—it is not. Although you can create terrific Web sites with RoboHelp HTML, its primary mission is to let you quickly, and easily, create Help systems.

This easy-to-use tutorial that will have you creating your own HTML Help systems (complete with topics, books, links, tables, forms, glossaries, frames, skins, templates, DHTML, cascading style sheets and more) within three days.

Note: This book has entered the final production phase. We expect it to begin around February 23, 2007. Order your copy now and we will ship your book to you "hot off the press."

Ready to order? Click here. Hurry, the coupon expires February 23, 2007.

Question:

We need to know if Robohelp has licenses available for Citrix use. A Citrix license will allow our users to run Robohelp from Citrix and access the user’s home directory while working from remote locations. Do you know if that’s possible?

Answer:

It’s a very bad idea to access your RoboHelp project via a network (where the project is on a network drive and you access the project from your local PC instead of working on the project via your local hard drive).

Problems with working over a network drive can range from poor performance to corrupt project files.

However, if I read this question correctly, the user is looking to access the RoboHelp project on her office computer via a remote connection. In that case, no problem. I use GoToMyPC (which uses Citrix) to access my RoboHelp projects all the time. Assuming your Internet connection is fast, running your project via Citrix should be no different than sitting in front of your PC and working on the project. And you do not need a special Citrix version of RoboHelp to access your RoboHelp software.