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Hello,
I am new to RoboHep and I have a question. I am trying to have different builds of a WebHelp for different companies. I want to be able to replace the name of the main Company throughout the WebHelp when I do a build for example. If the name of a Company is "Mike" and I am doing a build for a company named "Dave" everytime "Mike" appears in the original Help I want it to replace with "Dave" upon the build. I know I can use find and replace and just have different projects for each company, but is there a way to do this conditionally?
Thanks for the help.
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I am using RoboHelp 8
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Sure there is. You can use the User Defined Variables functionality for precisely this purpose. Make sure you have the Variables pod displayed (View > Pod > User Defined Variables) and click the top left icon (the one that looks like two cogs). Give the variable a name (e.g. companyname) and an initial value (companyA). If you then add the variable to the content instead of the actual company name, you only have to update the variable value for the change to be reflected everywhere the variable exists. So in summary, just create and add variable and change the varaibale value before creating your output.
The RoboColum(n) | @robocolumn | Colum McAndrew |
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Thank you, but I can't get this to work. I already have the original help built. I have found where to create the User defined variable and I am using the original name in the built guide as the Variable name and then the initail value as the name I want it to be. Is this correct? If so then how do I get it to apply to the entire document?
Thanks,
Chris
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Check out the following variable. Notice that the value is "CompanyA":
If you click and drag the variable from the pod into the topic it will appear like this:
and the HTML will look like this:
So long as you do things this way, you should only need to change the value of the variable in the User Defined Variables pod for the change to be reflected throughout your content. If it doesn't do this, can you let us know.
The RoboColum(n) | @robocolumn | Colum McAndrew |
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Sorry again, Maybe I am just doing this wrong. I have the word "Dave" 100 times in my
entire guide.
I want to replace it with the word Chris So I set the Variable name to "Dave" and the Variable Value to "Chris". When I drag it up to the topic all it does is insert the name "Chris" one time. It doesn't change all the "Dave"s to "Chris"s
The reason I am doing this is because I want to use this same help guide for 20 different companies. They may be, Chris, Dave, Mike, John , Bill and I just want to be able to change the one name and generate a new guide.
Thanks for your help. Maybe I am just dense today.
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No problem. The variable name serves no other purpose but to allow you to identify it. It does not affect the content at all. If you have "Dave" hundreds of times in your content, you'll need to replace that text hundreds of times with the variable. Then when you change that variable's value from Dave to Chris, the update is made hundreds of times in your topics. Hope this helps.
The RoboColum(n) | @robocolumn | Colum McAndrew |
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Hi there
Indeed you will need to locate all instances of the name as flat text and replace it with the variable. Unfortunately there isn't a way past that. However, RoboHelp may be able to help if you choose to try one of the scripts supplied. Click View > Pods > Script Explorer and that should open the Script Explorer pod. Once there, you should see a folder with Sample Scripts. Expand that folder and inside should be a script named UDV Converter. Actually, I see two.
One is a UDV with UI. Right-click and run that script and you should get a dialog allowing you to specify the names and values.
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! |
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Gentlemen,
Thank you both for your assistance . You have been a lifesaver. Two more questions. Is there a way for this to automatically change the TOC topics and the Books in the TOC? Also I assume that to get a different document for each variable I would just generate the output to a different folder for each instance?
Thank you,
Chris
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Right click any book or topic in the TOC and select Properties. You will see option to apply a variable.
You can keep changing the folder but I would create duplicates of the layout, one for each customer. Then set up each layout to have the right values and after that you just run the required layouts. Name them something like WebHelp Customer A, WebHelp Customer B and so on.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips