Linking to images

[karrasmith]

We want to be able to link to images in an external folder, so that if a screenshot should change, all we need to do is replace the image in the folder and not have to re-insert the image on the topic pages. Is there any way to do this in RoboHelp? The Insert Image command always seems to put a static copy in the Images folder. I also tried using a hyperlink, but couldn't seem to figure out a workaround. Thanks!

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi karrasmith and welcome to the RH forums. The answer to your question depends somewhat on what output type you are producing. All images that are added to a RH topic are copied into the RH project and will have to be replaced if it changes. You could just have one version of the image (in your RH Project) and update this which would automatically update the image in your topic. There are drawbacks with this approach however (e.g. if the image size changes). The other solution is to link from the topic to an image at a URL. Update the URL if the image changes and you have what you want. This lends itself best to webhelp although can be performed in other output formats. Does this help?

[karrasmith]

Hi Colum, thanks for your quick reply! Yes, this did help somewhat.

Our output is in fact webhelp. If I understand you correctly, if we link to a URL (where the image resides), we would need to update the URL on the topic page if the image changes. Our goal is to be able to have a "library" of images that we can reference in different places that stay the same size, but perhaps change only in terms of a specific field or button as the software changes. So if we replace the image in the "library" it would automatically update on our topic pages (because they are linked). That way we wouldn't have to update URLs or possibly even touch our topic pages.

[RoboColum_n_]

That's exactly it. If the image is not in the RH project, all you update is the "library" image. The only time you have to edit the RH project is if the library location changes.

[karrasmith]

So, in other words, images don't have to be included in the project folder called Images -- they can reside solely in an external directory on a file system? This didn't come across when I was reading through the online help, but it would certainly solve our issue. 🙂

[RoboColum_n_]

It is "normal" to include all images in your RH project which is why the help says what it does. However I'm all for pushing the boundaries and occasionally overstepping them in the cause of advancement . Having the images outside RH on a server is definitely overstepping the boundary in RH terms as RH will know nothing about the image. But hey, does it matter? You have a solution. BTW you may mant to read one of Rick Stone's Scrys on the subject of images and folders. You can access it here.

[karrasmith]

Colum, this is excellent information! You've been so helpful, thanks very much!! :-)

Karen

[symmetricalMan]

Hi there,
I too am looking for a solution to this, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you've done to resolve it.

In our situation, we have a folder of images that resides on a remote folder on our network. Many of those images are used in Help files for different software applications we develop. When we modify an image (regardless of what we do it), provided its name doesn't change, on compiling any of our Helps the image will be up-to-date, because it is dragged in at compile time.

Because the images are easy to manage when they're not duplicated and reside in a single location, we want to leave the images there, rather than allowing RH to copy them to a new, separate location for each Help project folder it creates.

Colum mentioned linking to these images with a URL, but how? And will the images be included with the Helps we distribute to our clients, or do those URL links occur 'live' when viewing the Help, therefore they'd only be valid on our network (which is of course useless to our clients).

Thanks.

[Linux Rules]

quote:

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Originally posted by: symmetricalMan
... or do those URL links occur 'live' when viewing the Help, therefore they'd only be valid on our network (which is of course useless to our clients).

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Correct. You need to publish the images to your Web server and point the RH image links there.

Regards,
GEWB

[Guest]

This is great information on images and the RoboWizard site is extremely helpful.

I just wanted to add a comment that, according to RoboHelp's technical support, RoboHelp does not work well with files that are on a network. According to them, all files used for projects should be on your hard drive. Just something to keep in mind if you're creating a new directory. Also, there was some discussion about people blaming things on bugs. I just wanted to clarify that it is RoboHelp technicians who are telling at least me it's a limitation of RoboHelp.