Category: RoboHelp

by Kevin Siegel

One of my RoboHelp clients wanted a watermark to appear on a majority of their topics. Specifically, the client wanted their logo to remain stationary right in the middle of their topics. As users scrolled up or down, the client wanted the topic text to move over the logo.

The solution to adding this kind of effect to multiple RoboHelp topics is surprisingly simple. (Note: The following steps will work in RoboHelp versions 7, 8 and 9.)

1. On the Project Manager pod, open the style sheet being used by the topics (if you're using multiple style sheets the following steps will need to be performed on each of them).
2. From the list of Styles at the left of the Styles dialog box, open the Other group.
3. Select Background + Text (BODY).

   The Background + Text (BODY) style controls the text, background images, background colors and borders used in any topic that uses the style sheet you are currently editing. Any of the topics in your project that use the style sheet will be affected by any changes you make here.

4. Click Format and select Borders and Shading to open the Borders and Shading dialog box.
5. Click the Shading tab.
6. In the Pattern area, click the button with the Magnifying Glass.
7. In the Image name area, click the folder at the right and open the image you want to use for the watermark.
8. From the X drop-down menu, choose Center.
9. From the Y drop-down menu, choose Center.
10. From the Repeat drop-down menu, choose No Repeat.
11. Remove the check mark from Scroll.

    

If you preview the topic, you'll see that the image you set to No Repeat and not to Scroll stays put as you scroll up or down.

Note: While you can use an image as a watermark, I would suggest using an image editing tool to reduce the brightness of the image to something like 15-20%. Anything darker and the watermark will likely be a distraction.

***

by Kevin Siegel

I was recently working with a client to convert a large RoboHelp for Word project into the latest and greatest version of RoboHelp HTML (version 9).

The process of upgrading a legacy RoboHelp for Word project is simple enough. All you have to do is start RoboHelp 9, choose File > Open, navigate to the RoboHelp for Word project folder and open the project file (an HPJ file). RoboHelp HTML will automatically convert the RoboHelp for Word project into RoboHelp HTML.

Once the upgrade was complete, I noticed something strange. Most of the topics contained at least one image. However, on the Project Manager pod, none of the images appeared. Normally, images that appear within a topic also show up on the Project Manager pod

Take a look at the image below. The icon_topics folder contains two folders–you can see both folders. There isn't anything beneath the last folder shown (icon_ops).  What you cannot see, based on the image alone, is that each of the topics within the folders contains at least one image, And that's the problem. If the topics contain images, the images should be visible in the root folder (or at the very least, you should see a sub-folder containing the images).

I opened some of the topics using RoboHelp's Design window. The images were fine. The images previewed correctly and the project generated without any trouble–it was just that those pesky file names didn't appear on the Project Manager pod. Since it isn't a requirement that the images appear on the pod, I could have left well enough alone and moved on. However, if I wanted to change the name of an image, or drag an image into another topic, I really needed the images to appear on the pod.

On the Project Manager pod, I right-clicked the icon_topics folder and chose Explore. The folder opened in a Window and I saw that the images were actually contained within a folder called icon_images.

For whatever reason, RoboHelp was not showing the icon_images folder on the Project Manager pod. Nevertheless, the fix was simple. Within the icon_topics folder on the Project Manager pod, I created a new folder (right-click > New > Folder) called icon_images. Once the folder was created, the images magically appeared on the Project Manager pod… and all was right with the world.

***

Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp? I'll be teaching a RoboHelp class later this month online. Both RoboHelp 8 and 9 users can attend.

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I wrote about what to do when menu items, which are supposed to be listed in a menu, have gone missing. This week I'd like to continue the theme and lower your stress level at the same time.

During my RoboHelp classes I'll ask students to select menu items from RoboHelp's various menus. One of the most common things I'll hear from students is that they can't find the menu item in question. The issue this time isn't that the menu item isn't in the menu (as was the case last week). This time, the item isn't spotted right away because the full menu isn't showing. After a few seconds, the menu expands automatically and BAM!; students say things to the effect of "Oh, now I see it. Where did it come from?"

Then students want to know if they've run into some kind of RoboHelp bug.

It's not a bug… it's a feature. By default, RoboHelp is set to show the menu items after a short delay. While this feature certainly keeps the RoboHelp menus short, it personally drives me nuts. Fortunately, it's simple to ensure that the full menus are always on display.

Choose View > Toolbars > Customize. On the Options tab, select Always show full menus and then click the OK button.

Upon your next visit to any of RoboHelp's menus, all will be revealed.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp, and fast? I'm teaching a live, online class that will give you the most essential RoboHelp skills… and in just two days.

by Kevin Siegel

There are multiple ways to do just about anything in Adobe RoboHelp. For instance, if you're looking to generate a layout, you can elect to use the Single Source Layouts pod, use a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-m) or select the Generate menu item found in the File menu.

During a recent RoboHelp class, I asked everyone to generate using the File menu (File > Generate). One of my students told me that he would be happy to do so, but the Generate menu item simply wasn't available in his File menu. It's not that I didn't believe him, but after taking a look at his File menu, I confirmed that his Generate menu item was, in fact, missing.

We tried resetting his Workspace (Environment in RoboHelp 8), but the pesky menu item would not reappear.

The student told me that he had never intentionally removed any of the menu items, and I believed him. Of course, that would mean that the menu item simply decided that it no longer wanted to be accessible. While strange, this is not the first time I have seen this kind of bad behavior in RoboHelp. Fortunately, the fix is simple.

Choose View > Toolbars > Customize. On the Toolbars tab, select the Menu Bar toolbar and then click the Reset button.

Click OK when you see the alert dialog box asking you to confirm your action.

While you will need to repeat the steps for any Toolbar that is missing a menu item, it just takes seconds and works every time.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp, and fast? I teach a live, online class that will give you the most essential RoboHelp skills… and in just two days.

by Kevin Siegel

Over the past few weeks, I've written about some of the more obvious cool features in new Adobe RoboHelp 9. While the new stuff is great, sometimes you can get so engrossed in the obvious, you don't see the little new things (which are no less cool than the big stuff) until you trip over them.

Such was the case last week as I was wrapping up my new "Adobe RoboHelp 9: The Essentials" book so that it would be ready for the beta team to review. (The new book should be ready for purchase within a few weeks.)

There I was, trying to wrap up the section on Context Sensitive Help (CSH) and Map IDs. As I was testing my data files, the pesky CSH window would not show the correct topic. No matter how hard I tried to convince it to do so, no matter how many times I republished the layout, and no matter how many times I checked my code, the CSH Map ID calls would not work as expected. In fact, instead of opening the intended topic, the layout's default topic opened.

Hmmm… so the link works, but the wrong topic opens. That's a simple fix. Go back and edit the Map file in RoboHelp, ensure the correct topic is mapped to the correct Map ID, save, generate and republish. In this case however, everything was in order.

After hours of tearing out what little hair I have left, I called upon fellow RoboHelp developer and trainer John Daigle to check my web application (the application I was using to test the CSH), my RoboHelp project and my generated layout files for me. 

At this point I was blurry-eyed and stumped. There simply had to be something I was missing, and it was probably simple. After a bit of banging around, John found the problem. It seems that RoboHelp 9 has a new, handy-dandy feature that I had overlooked. After creating a Map file and associating Map IDs with project topics, you can specify which Map file is to be associated with which content. Since you can have multiple Map files and multiple Content Categories, this new feature makes all of the sense in the world.

To assign a Map file to a layout, go to the Single Source Layouts pod and show the Properties of  your layout.

From the Content Categories group, select Content <Default>. From the Map Files area, select your Map file. Then save, Generate and Publish.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp, and fast? I'm teaching a live, online class that will give you the most essential RoboHelp skills… and in just two days.

by Kevin Siegel

RoboHelp has allowed you to create conditional build tags and expressions. If you've never used them, they let you generate multiple layouts from one project, each potentially containing unique content. But what if you wanted to take multiple layouts, combine them into one, and then let your users decide which layout they want after they access the Help system? That's the perfect scenario to use RoboHelp's new Content Categories.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp, and fast? I'm teaching a live, online class that will give you the most essential RoboHelp skills… and in just two days.