Can Robohelp 11 generate PDFs using an outside style template similar to what is done with DITA?

[CathyR-Fico]

We're just upgrading to Robohelp 11 from RH9 and need some help with the following process.

I'm currently working on a project where the project manager wants the PDFs auto generated out of RH totally finished. What I mean by this is that when RH generates a PDF, the PDF already has the formatted footer/headers and tables (i.e., the header rows repeat when the table spans page breaks), the correct paragraph styles, and the cover as required by the company standards. Currently, we have to format the docs manually using the following steps:

• generate a Word doc
• attach the correct style template to the Word doc
• Insert the formatted headers/footers in the Word
• adjust the Word doc page layout
• Tables - Format the table properties to repeat the header row when the tables span page breaks and fix the table cell border to all have the same color
• Generate a PDF
• In Adobe Acrobat, insert the cover PDF into the newly generated doc PDF.

Am I missing a simple way to generate PDFs with the cover & styles that I need?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You should probably have a look in the Printed Documentation forum…

[CathyR-Fico]

Ok thanks

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Peter Grainge is under the weather at the moment and has asked me to post this in his behalf:

You should be able to get what you want with RoboHelp version 11. It's also in the RoboHelp Tour and the Employee Care 2 sample. (To open the Employee Care 2 sample - In RoboHelp, click File > Open and click the Samples folder on the left side of the dialog.)

With the tables, you will not get what you want, but there is a macro on Peter's site that could do that.

With the cover page - You can have your own cover page so you would just generate the PDF with no need to tweak it.

Cheers... Rick

[Peter Grainge]

Thanks for covering this one Rick. Beginning to feel a bit better so here I am!

Most of what you want has been possible in Rh in the version you have.

• You can substitute your own cover page(s) for the default.
• You can map tables in Rh to tables in Word.
• Use your own template to map to, albeit without headers and footers.

In most documents it is simply not possible to go straight to PDF simply because page breaks will not be where you would choose to put them.

With Rh11, you can have headers and footers and they can be different in different sections of the document, so nothing on the cover and TOC, if that is what you want. Page numbering is not forced to left and right, it's where you want it. You an include corporate logos.

Typically I only spend 10/15 minutes fixing the Word output on the longest documents (around 1000 pages) and then I push them to PDF without having to make any changes there.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge