Import All HTML Files from Help Project into RoboHelp?

[Douglas_Campbell]

I am using RoboHelp HTML 9 and am fairly new to the product.

Our company is customizing the software from a large enterprsie vendor. The online help for this software needs to be updated to reflect the customizations to the software.

Our company has an internal UX group that typically manages this documentation work. We need to retain and control the source files for our ongoing needs.

However, the vendor doesn't want to provides us with their source files to modify the help system (although they are willing to customize the online help for a substantial fee).So we have decided to recreate the online help.

We have a copy of their existing help system that ships with the software. That is, we have the HTML files that were output by whatever authoring solution they used (I believe it may have been RH).

I am aware that I can import HTML pages into an existing project. But is there anyway to import all the HTML files from a help system into RH in a way that would at least give me a framework to recreate and customize it. Or is my best bet to start from scratch and recreate the help system page by page in RH?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

You are certainly able to import any HTML file into RoboHelp. But the problem is, if these are output files they may well contain additional coding and whatnot that you don't really want to repurpose as source files.

Are you able to show us perhaps the HEAD area of one of these files? There may be telltale clues as to what was used to create them.

You may also want to review my page at the link below where I advise how to re-use output files and make them source files again.

Click here to view

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Peter Grainge]

Your call but you may also need to consider copyright. If they are not willing to release the source files, they might try to enforce copyright.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Douglas_Campbell]

You're right, they are full of javascript and other coding that make the prospect of unraveling them unrealistic, I think. I'll stick with recreating them. Thanks for your input.

[Amebr]

Please do be careful of reproducing another company's help. It is their property. They might not worry if it remains internal, but expect crankiness if it gets to the public. One story I heard was a company (Company2) customising the help internally, but it was sent to one of their clients via email and got back to the original company. Company1 was not happy, esp. because the pdf had a "copyright Company2" in it, and sent a cease and desist.