Make index entries hot links in Word version?

[MM_Acton]

I'm using RoboHelp 9 (yes, we're behind the times here). I have a question about something that's never worked, but it's been a low priority, so I just kept ignoring it.

When I generate a Word version of my project, it has an index, but none of the index entries are hyperlinked. The TOC entries are hyperlinked, so why aren't the index entries?

Environment:

RoboHelp 9

Word 2013, but it never worked with Word 2010

Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit

Project Settings:

Add New Keywords to Index File (HHK)

Binary Index

What do I need to do to make the index entries hyperlinks when I generate the Word doc?

[MM_Acton]

I just did some research on the web and it appears that Word itself does not support hyperlinking the index.

The articles I found on the web suggest either writing a macro or finding a third-party solution. Has anyone done that?

[Peter Grainge]

Try asking that on Windows Secrets. http://windowssecrets.com/forums/

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Personally, I've never understood why even TOC entries were hyperlinked. Why? Well, it's quite simple. The Word output from RoboHelp is really intended for printing. And there is no such thing as a hyperlink on a printed sheet of paper.

If you want to use the Word document as you would use WebHelp or other on-line output, why even consider using an expensive product like RoboHelp?

What would be your goal in having the index entries hyperlinked? Perhaps if we better understood why you want that we might be able to suggest a workaround.

Cheers... Rick

[MM_Acton]

Peter, will do.

Rick, I agree. However, in this instance there's a good reason. My client wants a subject matter expert to take over a maintaining the more volatile section of the help. (The stable section will not be updated as frequently, and will require a writer resource who knows RH.)

After reviewing the time it would take to train a non-writer SME on RH,  we decided to export that section to Word, have the SME maintain it in Word. It will be distributed as a standalone PDF.

The users will access the PDF online as they would the chm. It would be good if it had a hyperlinked index. It's not a show-stopper if it doesn't; the user can look at the page number and then press Ctrl-G to go to that page.

[Captiv8r]

Ahhh, okay. That does make sense. Thanks for sharing!

Wish I had something of value to offer here. But I don't. Sorry.

Cheers... Rick

[Paula R. Stern]

As someone else said - this functionality doesn't exist in Word so it is highly unlikely that you can get RoboHelp to create this. If it is a showstopper, once you generate the PDF, you can manually create the links in Acrobat. I did that once for a client who really wanted the index linked...until after a few versions, I showed him that even Word didn't link it so he finally let that go.

Sorry - I can't think of a way to do this automatically other than creating a topic called "Index" in RH and manually creating the linked version of the index there and treating it as a separate topic. The advantage to doing this is that it is much easier to do in RH than in Word; the disadvantage is it would still take time and would have to be manually maintained in the future (i.e....cute idea, but a documentation nightmare).