CSH: Proper way of doing it?

[Guest]

Hello all,

I have been "messing" with RoboHelp for the past week and I had a few questions. First though, I'll give you a bit of information about my project. I have been given several Word document files that will be merged into an online help system via RoboHelp. So, you can imagine how that is. For now, I only have two documents merged into one, but more will be coming later. I'm using the import document feature, so it's converting a print medium into web which I dislike from the start. Does it make sense to "reengineer" the help to fit the web?

Besides that issue, it needs to be setup so context sensitive help works. If the current format will work where it basically looks like a word document online, I have the issue of setting up the CSH. To properly accomplish CSH, do I have to create a topic for each item to be mapped? Currently, the topics are broken down and just tagged in several places. It doesn't make sense for other information to be loaded with CSH if you only specifically want to know about that one thing. This brings up another question though. Can you have multiple topics displayed on one page?

I'm thinking I probably know the answers and the right thing to do is to reorganize the project so it's suitable for the web. But, hopefully there is a better way.

Thank you all for your assistance.

[Guest]

Well, I ended up ditching the "Import Word Document" method just because it was too hard to work with, the HTML anyway. So, I started from scratch and it's working out better, minus the amount of time it is taking. I'm still curious if I could have managed with the import method instead of starting over like I did?

[Peter Grainge]

Sorry for slow reply, I missed this because of a forum hiccough.

Does it make sense to "reengineer" the help to fit the web?

Yes. Print is linear. Web, as I think you realise, is follow the route you need.

Besides that issue, it needs to be setup so context sensitive help works.

Another reason for doing the same thing.

If the current format will work where it basically looks like a word document online, I have the issue of setting up the CSH. To properly accomplish CSH, do I have to create a topic for each item to be mapped?

If you use URLs to call the help, you can include a bookmark so you don't necessarily have to create separate topics. Also it depends what level you want your CSH to go to. For one product, we historically have one topic for every field and now it is a massive beast requiring lots of resources to feed it. For other apps, we put the fields in a table in one topic. It works just as well for users and the field help is in with the screen help which they also like. The developers know that in screen X, all calls to the help just go to topic X

When you import from Word, you can break the document based on styles. That might help break your document up better.

Hope that helps.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Guest]

Okay, that's what I figured. With the assistance of the conditional build, I think I'll be able to get what I want. Thank you for your insight.