Filtering information (similar to Excel)

[Linda_W1]

Hi,

I have a topic that will be referring to data that is currently held in an Excel spreadsheet. I don't want to link my topic to the spreadsheet as the customer will be running the application over a Terminal Server and Office won't be installed on any of the user PCs.

I was thinking if it was possible (in RoboHelp) to create a table for my data and apply filters in the same way that it is possible to filter information in an Excel spreadsheet. (The data currently held in the spreadsheet has filters for columns such as "In Use" and "Functional Area".)

I have searched the forums for any such related topic but to no avail.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,
Linda.

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Linda. I don't think this will be possible in the way you descrbe. RH does not have any filter functionality for tables. You can use conditional tags but these are generally used to include/exclude entire rows/columns. Perhaps a way around this is to have different tables to display the "In Use" and "Functional Area" data. You could have these as hotspots which when clicked would display the table in a drop down? Could also try saving the spreadsheet as .HTM files, importing them into your project and linking to them. Just two suggestions

[Linda_W1]

Hi Colum,

Many thanks for your reply.

I like the sound of your suggestion about having different tables and the use of Hotspots. That would actually work better - once again, many thanks.

Linda.

[Guest]

I think you could do this using javascript to hide/display the columns required. You simply need to apply a particular id or name to the columns you want to filter.

I do this for topics that get used for mutliple sets of users. Let me know if you need more information.