RoboHelp – Page 7 – The Logical Blog

September 28, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: eLearning & Help Join Forces

by Kevin Siegel

When I teach my RoboHelp class, one of the RoboHelp features that most excites my students is RoboHelp's ability to import eLearning lessons published by Adobe Captivate.

In this age of visual communication, incorporating interactive eLearning with your help content just makes sense. You know the old saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words." Instead of a topic in RoboHelp going on and on for paragraph after paragraph, why not simply explain the concept in a few sentences and then let the Captivate video do the talking?

Here's how you can quickly incorporate Captivate content within a RoboHelp topic:

Using Adobe Captivate, create and publish a Captivate video as a SWF.
Using RoboHelp, create a RoboHelp topic and type your topic content as you normally would. Of course, as mentioned above, I'd think about keeping the content you type as short and sweet as possible and then lead into the Captivate video with something along the lines of The following interactive topic lesson will allow you to perform these actions now.
Insert the Captivate video into the topic by choosing Insert > Adobe Captivate Demo. Navigate to the location of your Captivate published SWF and open it.

At this point, your RoboHelp topic will contain a large box that won't look much like the Captivate video you published. No worries. Simply preview the topic and you'll see the video. Your customers will only need Adobe's free Flash Player on their computers to watch and interact with the lesson.

Would you like to take this concept to the next level? Consider setting up the RoboHelp topic so that the Captivate video only appears if the learner wants to see it. (As it stands now, the video will automatically play when the topic is accessed. If it's lower down the page, the learner might not even know that it's there and could miss it.)

If it were me, I'd make the video part of an expanding drop-down link. If the learner clicks the link, the video opens (otherwise it stays hidden).

Select the Captivate video and cut it (it will be moved to the Clipboard and will be pasted back into the topic next).
Highlight the text you typed to announce the lesson (i.e: The following interactive topic lesson will allow you to perform these actions now.) and choose DHTML > Create Drop-down Hotspot and Text. Select the placeholder text and paste the clipboard content into the Expanding Text Window.

Preview the topic and click the link. BAM! The topic text will get out of the way and make room for the interactive simulation. How cool is that?

If you'd like to see a demonstration of the process described above, click here.

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Need to learn RoboHelp… and fast? Join me this week for a live, two-day class.

September 14, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp: Controlling Hyperlink Colors

by Kevin Siegel

Creating a hyperlink in RoboHelp is surprisingly easy. All you need to do is highlight some text and choose Insert > Hyperlink/Popup. Select a topic from the Select destination (File or URL) area and click OK. Alternatively, you can drag a topic from the Project Manager pod directly into an open topic and create both the hyperlink text and hyperlink at one time. Students who attend my online RoboHelp class find the latter hyperlink technique to be the coolest thing ever.

The resulting color of hyperlinked text is typical: hyperlinks appear as blue, underlined text.

You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that you can control the color of the hyperlinked text by editing the topic's CSS.

On the Project Manager pod, double-click your CSS to open the Styles dialog box.

From the Character group, notice that there are four Hyperlink options: active, hovered, unvisited and visited.

The unvisited link is the color of a hyperlink before a user has clicked the link. Once a link has been clicked, it is known as a visited link. The active link is the color of a link as the user is clicking the link. And hovered is the color of a link when the user hovers the mouse over the link, but does not click.

If you want to change any of the link colors, simply select it from the list and change the color via the color menu at the right. For instance, I'd like to change the Hyperlink (unvisited) color.

Hyperlink (unvisited)

After selecting Hyperlink (unvisited), I selected Maroon from the list of colors.

Changing the hyperlink color

All that's left to do after that is click the Apply button and then click the OK button. Any topics using the edited CSS will use the new hyperlink color.

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? I have a class coming up this month. Click here to learn more.

***

September 8, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp: Two Birds… One Stone. Combine Master Pages with CSS

by Kevin Siegel

I'm a big fan of working as efficiently as possible. With that in mind, I teach students who attend my live, online RoboHelp classes how to create Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) on the first day of class. And then I teach how to create master pages on the second day. Of all the wonderful features you'll find in RoboHelp, CSS and Master Pages are arguably two of the most important things to learn and use if you want to work more efficiently in RoboHelp.

If you create a CSS you'll be able to quickly control the look and feel of all of the topics in your project. You can control such things as font formatting, background colors, background images and link colors.

By creating and applying master pages to topics, you can quickly add static objects to topics such as headers and footers (something you cannot do using CSS).

The process of applying either a CSS or a Master Page to a topic is nearly the same. Select a group of topics via the Topic List pod, show the Topic Properties and then visit either the General tab (where you can apply the Master Page) or the Appearance tab (where you can apply the CSS).

Of course, applying both the Master Page and the CSS to project topics does require visiting those two different tabs (General and Appearance), which just isn't very efficient. Looking to double-down? You can automatically have the Master Page apply your CSS to a topic at the same time that you apply the Master Page, thereby eliminating the need to visit multiple tabs.

Show the Properties of a Master Page.
On the Appearance tab, select your CSS from the list of available Style Sheets (you can also create a CSS on the fly by clicking the New button and copy a CSS in from any other project via the browser button).
Click the OK button.
Any topics that were previously using your Master Page will now be using the CSS you selected. In the future, when you apply the Master Page to any topics, those topics will also get the CSS. Should you edit the Properties of the Master Page and change the assigned CSS, all topics using the Master Page will instantly be updated.

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? I have a class coming up this month. Click here to learn more.

***

August 12, 2010

Question of the Week: Adobe RoboHelp

Question: How Can I Use Topics From One Project in Another?

I can't find any information on exporting topics from one project to another, or copying and pasting topics among two different projects. Can this be done?

Answer: Yes. If you want to use a topic in one RoboHelp project in another, choose File > Import > HTML (XHTML). Alternatively, you can copy the contents of a topic to the clipboard and paste in another.

July 20, 2010

Featured Online Class: Adobe RoboHelp Server 8

Help Authors have long wanted to know: "Am I being helpful?" Adobe RoboHelp Server 8 helps answer that question.

Adobe RoboHelp Server is a powerful option used with the RoboHelp authoring tool. In this live class you will receive practical tips on how to configure and publish RoboHelp projects to the RoboHelp Server and to generate user feedback reports.

What is covered in this Course?

Benefits of content optimization and creating a constant improvement loop with user feedback.
What end-users experience as they view content delivered with enhanced power of RoboHelp Server.
System Requirements and scenarios for installing Adobe RoboHelp Server 8.
Setting up Authoring groups and users – strategies for multiple authoring teams.
Creating password protected "Areas" for special audiences.
Administering the RoboHelp Server remotely from any web browser.
Scenarios for Merging Projects (one TOC/Index/Search/Glossary for many separate projects).
Generating User Feedback Reports to determine what topics the end users see and what they search for.
Using the reports to continuously modify content.
Tips on working with the IT department to deploy RoboHelp Server.

John Daigle will be your guide for this three-hour course. John is an Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate instructor (ACP) and has consulted on Adobe RoboHelp Server since its inception.

The class is next week. It's not too late to register. Click here to learn more or to sign up.

July 7, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: The Pros Have It, The Others Don’t

by Kevin Siegel

During my RoboHelp class, students are introduced to the concept of generating a layout via the Single Source Layouts pod (View > Pods > Single Source Layouts) pretty early.

The pod, which appears below, contains a handful of layouts (output files) that can be generated one at a time or in a batch.

RoboHelp layouts

The type of layout you choose depends on your audience. For instance, you would choose Adobe AIR to generate Help as an Adobe AIR application, browser-based Help (with the theme and skin of an Adobe AIR application), or as a packaged data file that can be viewed in an AIR Help viewer. Adobe AIR is a cross-platform format for building and deploying applications that connect the desktop to the web.

You would go with WebHelp if you wanted a web-based or desktop Help on any browser and platform. WebHelp supports standard Help features and provides customizing capabilities.

And you would generate FlashHelp if you were worried about DHTML limitations for browsers and platforms and high-security firewall issues. Although FlashHelp is arguably the slickest-looking of the outputs, your customers would need to have the Flash Player 8 or later and a web browser to view the Help system. In addition, FlashHelp isn't as easily customized as WebHelp.

So there you have it… I've given you the basic information you need to understand the layouts on the Single Source Layouts pod. See ya…

What's that you say? I forgot the Pro layouts? Oh, sorry about that. As I teach my RoboHelp students about the big three layouts on the Single Source Layouts pod (WebHelp, FlashHelp and Adobe AIR), the two Pro layouts almost always get the short end of the stick. It's not that the Pro layouts aren't cool, they are. It's just that many RoboHelp developers don't have the one, key component required to take advantage of either Pro layout.

But I digress. First let me explain what the two Pro layouts are. WebHelp Pro and FlashHelp Pro deliver server-based output. The advantage of server-based output?

Increased speed: The Contents, Index, and Search tabs appear more quickly.
Usage information: Collect feedback painlessly from readers by analyzing their traffic patterns and search behavior.
Runtime project merging: As a Help author, you can easily merge multiple projects at runtime. This is the perfect workflow if you are working with multiple authors, each working on a different part of the Help system and you want to combine everything as one larger project.
Better Search: Provides a powerful search engine to produce better results.

So the Pro layouts sound great, better than either FlashHelp or WebHelp for sure (I'll discuss the merits of Adobe AIR in a future article). So what's the catch to using the Pro layouts? Just one, but it's a biggie. You will need to own, install and manage Adobe RoboHelp Server before you will be able to publish either Pro layout to a server.

RoboHelp Server? Simply put, RoboHelp Server is an option–purchased independently of RoboHelp–that adds the capabilities mentioned above to your Help system.

In the image below you will see the workflow that incorporates RoboHelp Server.

RoboServer Workflow

Image Source: Adobe

Basically you take your RoboHelp projects, publish them to the server and BAM, you'll get the database and feedback reports that make the Pro layouts stand apart.

In today's search-centric world, I think you would be well-served to consider adding the Pro layouts and RoboHelp Server to your Help arsenal.

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Looking for learn RoboHelp quickly? I've got a two-day RoboHelp class coming up online. Click here to learn more. And if you'd like to learn how to install and use RoboHelp Server, we've got a 3-hour online class you'll be interested in. Click here for more details.

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Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kevin_siegel

May 24, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp: Links to PDFs in the Baggage Files Folder

by Kevin Siegel

If you want to include PDFs in your RoboHelp Help System there are basically two ways to proceed. First, you can store the PDFs on your Web server and then create a standard link to the PDF from within any topic in your Help system. However, if you go that route, the PDFs won't be searchable from within the Help System.

If you instead add the PDF to your Baggage Files folder, and then create links, the PDFs will be part of the generated Help System and the PDFs will be searchable via the Search tab. Sweet! The problem is that creating the link to the PDFs isn't an obvious series of steps. Read on to learn how.

Add the PDF to the Baggage Files folder

Right-click the Baggage Files folder (the folder is located on the Project Manager pod, but you'll need to change the view to Details view instead of Global view) and choose New > Baggage File.

Add a Link to the PDF Link the TOC

If you would like to add the PDF to your TOC, create a new TOC Page. On the General tab, give the page a title. Select Baggage File from the Link to drop-down menu. Finally, select the PDF you just added to the Baggage Files folder.

Create a PDF Link within a Topic

If you'd like to make a link in a topic to the PDF in the Baggage file, press [shift] on your keyboard and drag the PDF from the Baggage File into a topic. Nice!

If you would like to watch a video of this process, click here.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp quickly. Join me at the end of this week for a live, 2-day RoboHelp class (class starts Thursday). Click here to register or learn more about this and upcoming classes.

***

Follow Kevin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kevin_siegel

May 10, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: Search, Taken Out of Context

by Kevin Siegel

One huge enhancement found in Adobe RoboHelp 8 over older versions of the program is the improved Search features you get out of the box. First of all, RoboHelp now ranks the Search terms in order of importance. Nice. Secondly, the Topic's title and first few sentences of each found topic now appear on the Search tab.

RoboHelp Search showing rankings and topic content

While I'm happy about the Search rankings, I've had more than one customer tell me that the topic content that appears along with the topic makes the Search panel too cluttered. No matter, you can easily disable the feature.

On the Single Source Layouts pod, show the Properties of the layout.
Click the Next button to move to the second screen.
From the Search Options area, deselect Show Context in Search Result.
Generate and view the layout; then use the Search feature.
You'll notice that the topic is still found, but only the Topic Title appears.

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Looking for training on Adobe RoboHelp 8? I teach a live, online RoboHelp class once each month. Click here to learn more.

***

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kevin_siegel

April 27, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp: Synchronize the TOC Automatically

by Kevin Siegel

One of the three most common features of any help
system is the Table of Contents (the Index and Search features are the others).
However, even while most Help Authors take the time to create a detailed and
seemingly helpful TOC, most Help System customers will not look to the TOC first
when they are trying to get help. Instead, customers they will typically look to
Search the Help System or use the Index.

Why don't Help customers look
to the TOC first when looking for Help? As helpful as the TOC might seem to a
Help author, the TOC is typically laid out in a logical order that's only
logical to the person who created the TOC.

If customers saw the topic
they were looking for on the TOC, there's a good chance they would click the
topic on the TOC and open the topic. The problem is that a typical TOC might be
made up of books inside of books inside of books. There is simply very little
chance that the topic in question is open for the customer to
click.

RoboHelp's Synchronize Table of
Contents feature will automatically show where a topic is located on the
TOC while customers use the Index or Search feature to get help.

On the
Single Source Layouts pod, show the Properties of either FlashHelp or WebHelp.
Click the Next button and select Synchronize Table of Contents and then select
Automatically from the drop-down menu at
the right.

Generate and view your project. Use either Search or
the Index to find a topic that is on the TOC. The topic will be highlighted on
the Table of Contents. Believe it or not, the more your customers see the topic
on the TOC, the more likely it will be that they will use the TOC to find and
open the topic in the future.

***

Need to learn Adobe RoboHelp
8… and fast? I'm teaching a live, online RoboHelp class at the end of this
week (April 29-30). Click here to sign up or learn
more.

***

Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/kevin_siegel.

April 21, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp: Why Type It When RoboHelp Will Do it For You?

by Kevin Siegel

How many times have you found yourself adding the same information to your RoboHelp topics over and over again. Maybe it's the name of your CEO. Maybe it's your corporation's "mother paragraph" (the paragraph that tells customers what your company is all about).

Believe it or not, RoboHelp has the ability to replace a few characters you might type on your keyboard (such as the letters zzz) with a phrase, sentence… even multiple sentences). All you need to do is put RoboHelp's AutoCorrect feature on the job.

Open any of your project topics.
Choose Tools > Spelling Options and select the AutoCorrect tab.
In the Replace field, type some text (such as the letters zzz).
In the With field, type the text you would like to appear should you type the letters in the Replace field (in the example below, I typed three sentences into the With field.
Click the Add button.
Click the OK button.
Open any topic, press your [spacebar] and then type the letters you typed into the Replace field (such as zzz).
Press [spacebar] one final time and BAM! The letters have been replaced by whatever you typed in the Replace field.

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Need to learn Adobe RoboHelp 8? And fast? I'm teaching an online RoboHelp class at the end of this month (April 29-30). Click here to sign up or learn more.

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Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/kevin_siegel.