Creating Custom RoboHelp Skins

[Transmute70]

Hola all,

Does anyone out there have a website or related suggestions on how to create custom skins within the latest version of RoboHelp? I have looked on the Macromedia Website (which, incidentally has a link to a non-existant skins collection) for help, but RH's help is sort of useless and convoluted, and the pocess presented inside RH is in no way intuitive (at least for someone with little HTML experience).

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Diane

[RoboWizard]

Hi Diane

Unfortunately I have no other information on creating your own skin. Your best bet is probably to use what is in the RoboHelp help file.

If you take a look at the thread linked below, I've outlined how to get at the skins collection for RoboHelp.

Click here to read the thread

Hopefully this will help... Rick

[Transmute70]

Hi Rick, and thanks for your help! I searched forever to find the online skins collection before and never found it--now I know where it is!

One other question: from what your response to my initial post insinuated, there is no way to get around the RH provided skins, that "Powered by RoboHelp" symbol and that basic two-pane format? I know nothing about creating online graphics and the like myself, but I do have a colleague that is well versed in such things, so if It can be done I am sure she could pull it off.

To be a little more specific, what our company would like to do is brand the help skin to complement the product a little better. Is this something that can be accomplished in RoboHelp?

Thanks,
Diane

[richard_adams]

Diane,

You can definately customise your help to look like your software product. I am assuming you are generating WebHelp.

In RoboHelp simply go to the Project tab, right click on 'Skins' and select 'New Skin'. The select 'Create Custom Web Help Skin'. Straight away you can see the Background colour and Selected Button colour, these are simple enough to change.

To replace the 'powered by RoboHelp' logo, click on the 'About' selection in Toolbar > Main and click the 'Edit Toolbar Item' button (which I think is a pencil?) If you upload an 'About Button Image' this will replace the 'Powered By...' one, you can see all the other info that can also be updated.

Have a play around here with the other options and see how you get on. You can use the Preview button to see how it all looks. When finished simply click 'OK' and generate your help via File > Generate Primary Layout (WebHelp). On the first generate screen make sure you select your newly created skin.

Hope this is of some help, it really doesn't take much once you get the hang of it all.

Richard.