Getting Started - Importing Word Doc vs. Starting from Scratch

[mmptx]

RoboHelp HTML Version 8

My task is to make our school district's Student Handbooks available online.  There are 5 handbooks and each handbook is documented in one Word document.  Each word document is approximately 40 pages with page breaks inserted for pagination.  There appears to be no defined heading styles used in these handbooks.

1.  What is the best method for populating these handbooks in RoboHelp8 - importing or linking - since the content is in Word?

2.  Should the handbook be broken down by topics (as it is one continuous topic upon importing)?

3.  The handbook topics will need to be able to be printed individually in addition to being able to print out the whole handbook.  Are there any recommendations for accomplishing this during the design phase?

Any advice or tips you can provide is very much appreciated!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

The first question is - where are you planning to maintain these docs, in Word or RH, going forward? That answer will help inform you as to linking or importing. Your second question is - Yes - breaking things up into topics makes for easier navigation, but it also means that you have to change you're writing - you can't refer to stuff on page xx, or see above type references because there's no guarantee that each topic will follow the next in sequential order. Third question - printing from RH is fairly lame; you have to send the project to Word & PDF it from there. I would create a PDF of the whole thing (or individual topics) outside of RH and bundle them as baggage files. Then make a link to them in some "Print these docs" topic.

[mr_scribbler]

Hi, Jeff's question about where you want to maintain the information is crucial. Maybe RH is not the ideal tool for this job. If you are happy continuing to maintain the Word docs and have access to Acrobat X, you could create a PDF Portfolio. Here your users can view and print (and search across) the PDF's individually and together.

atb/mike

[mmptx]

Word has been used to-date to maintain the student handbooks for printing purposes. Due to school funding cuts, we need to make the handbooks available online for easy access; however, a good percentage of parents do not have internet access at home. I have used Adobe RoboHelp in the past to document software applications and policy/procedure knowledge bases. It was the first software tool I thought of use for this scenario. What about using RoboHelp for Word? I need to use a tool that includes a Search feature and a Table of Contents to be structured as follows:

Elementary Student Handbooks

English Pre-K - 5

Spanish Pre-K - 5

Secondary Student Handbooks

English 6-12

Spanish 6-12

High School Course Catalog

English

Spanish

Any additional suggestions are appreciated.

Melissa Phillips

[Captiv8r]

Hi Melissa

Like others, you need to decide how the content will be managed down the road. If Word is still desired, then I'd consider using the linking feature.

Sounds like the content is smallish at 40 or so pages. So I think I'd be investigating opening these in Word myself and tweaking things like applying consistent headings and the like so that you see a better end result in RoboHelp.

Just my own observations... Rick

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