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MS Word to RH 7 workflow

Explorer ,
Jun 09, 2008 Jun 09, 2008

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I've recently been learning RoboHelp 7 on my own. My experience has been with FrameMaker and webWorks Publisher in the past. I wanted to ask for input from the forum about the best practices using RH7 HTML.

I'm working on a project that requires a User Guide in PDF and Online Help using RH7 HTML. I'm generating WebHelp as output. I've been documenting the procedures in MS Word (FrameMaker is not an option here) to single source this process and be able to create both the UG and Online Help. I have done a few tests and was able to import the Word file into RH7 with little issues. I wanted to ask if others have done similar workflows and found it to be conducive to create the content in one source and not use RH7 HTML to enter new topics as source?

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Participant ,
Jun 09, 2008 Jun 09, 2008

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Hi,

I was in a similar situation. I used Frame at all my previous jobs, but wasn't able to use it at this one. But after a lot of testing, I decided it was better to create content in RH7 HTML and output it to WebHelp, Word, and then PDF. This process allows me to focus on the look and feel of the online help, which is our preferred output. (The PDFs get used by only a few customers on special request, so I don't care if they're especially "pretty.")

There was a bit of a learning curve to authoring in RH7, but it's a fun tool once you get the hang of it (way more fun to use on a daily basis than Word). Plus it seems much more stable and more predictable than Word. And, I may be mistaken, but I think that you're less likely to encounter formatting issues going from RH to Word/PDF, than from Word to RH.

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Explorer ,
Jun 10, 2008 Jun 10, 2008

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Hi Azi,

I've been using RH for a couple of years (about 1 month on RH7, previously X5) and while it does have some frustrations, e.g. not being able to select table rows and cut paste them around, it is a powerful tool and lets you build a complex help system with good control on the content.

I would say Word is easier to create content, but I think there are others who would prefer to create from scratch in RH. We had a team of authors working in Word and just a couple of us doing the import to RH. As long as they stick to their templates properly it is not too time consuming to import.. There are always a couple of issues, e.g. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=65&catid=447&threadid=1369167&e... :)

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Guest
Jun 10, 2008 Jun 10, 2008

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Hi
Personally, I would recommend either single sourcing from RH or making the case and using Framemaker, then convert to required outputs. Even if one exports from RH to word there's a lot of tidying up afterwards needed.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 10, 2008 Jun 10, 2008

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If you're concerned about single source, consider the alternative to the excellent suggestions above:

1. The source is a Word file.
2. Generate .pdf output from word.
3. Import the Word file to RH 7.
4. Make no changes in RH, except to apply html styles and links or to fix typos. In other words, keep it pretty much like the Word document.

(Oops, if you fix typos in RH, you're out of sync with the source.)

5. Generate WebHelp that looks pretty much like the Word document.


Good luck,
Harvey

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Explorer ,
Jun 10, 2008 Jun 10, 2008

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Thank you everyone for your input. I've decided to recreate my document in RH output in PDF and Word when needed. I think in the long term this will serve best for me and I may avoid inline styles and tagging problems.

I have two other related questions to ask about the workflow. The images that I originally pasted in Word were in .jpg format and they rendered very nicely. However, I've inserted the same images in a few samples in RH using insert image and they turn out fuzzy and unclear in webhelp output. Is there a preferred format to import into RH? The second part to the question is to automatically save these images in an 'images' folder in the Project Manager pod. Is there a way to set up RH to save images automatically inside a folder?

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Guest
Jun 12, 2008 Jun 12, 2008

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Hi again,
RE formats, I prefer Gif, but before you think about what format to save in capture your images at a higher resolution using your capture tool. Add any effects such as cutaway etc, then save as for example, Gif.

RE images location:
I have no experience with RH7.
In the previous version, images appear under the Images folder in project manager with the folder they were imported into displayed in both the Images and HTML files (topics) folder.

However, the images only appear under the images folder in project manager. Once imported all work with images files should be done inside RH to maintain links etc.

Hope that helps

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