Authoring in Word and CBTs

[James_K__Patrick]

Morning all,

RH 802 generating WebHelp.

I haven't found any info on whether the following is possible/has been done before. So I thought I'd see what the collective wisdom has to say.

My authors write in Word 2007 and a piece of content may apply to one or more of 14 different products. So paragraph 1 may apply to product 1, paragraph 2 apply to all 14 products and paragraph 3 apply to products 1, 4, 6 and 9.

Is there any way to indicate text in Word so that when imported, RH knows to apply a certain CBT or combination of CBTs? Do other folks just have the authors make a notation in the Word doc and then manually apply CBTs once the content is imported?

Anyone ever try sticking "<?rh-cbt_start condition="Product 1" ?>" markup into the Word doc before importing?

Thanks for your brainpower,

Patrick

[Peter Grainge]

Nothing that I have seen posted and I cannot think of anything that would enable this.

The nearest is to add a marker in Word such as ### before any such text or use a unique word such as "redrabbbit".

I'll assume there is a good reason for creating the content in Word, such as it being written by someone else.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[MergeThis]

You could use a product such as FAR to get these CBTs into your RH topics. (Don't forget, you need to add the end tag as well as the start tag.) However, this would still be a manual process. The good thing is that one replacement setup, as shown below, would zip through all instances of the text, thereby possibly saving some time.

FAR has a neat function in its advanced find-and-replace: variables. For example, using the $O$ variable, FAR will replace $O$ with the current match text found (from Start with: string to End with: string). You can replace them one at a time or replace all.

Start with: FirstWord
End with: LastWord

Replace with:

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Condition1" ?>

$O$<?rh-cbt_end ?>

Your result will be:

<?rh-cbt_start condition="Condition1" ?>FirstWord...LastWord<?rh-cbt_end ?>

You would only need your contributors to provide a list of content paragraphs and their related conditions. I'm not sure if this would help for this particular need; however, I use FAR a LOT, and couldn't do without it!

Good luck,

Leon

[James_K__Patrick]

Leon,

Thanks for the heads up. My search and replace needs have been modest to this point. But with FAR, it sounds like I can have authors start a paragraph with "AppliestoProduct1" and finish it with "EndcontnetforProduct1". Then use FAR to add the CBT tags.

But I'm guessing I'd have to go back and delete the "AppliestoProduct1" and  "EndcontnetforProduct1" text.

Thanks,

Patrick

[MergeThis]

No, actually, you could simply use a different FAR variable ($O-$). From the FAR help:

     $O-$ is replaced with the current match text but without the Start with and End with text.

Therefore, your Start with would be "AppliestoProduct1" and End with would be "EndcontnetforProduct1." FAR would strip those Find strings and only put the actual text between those strings inside the cbt start and end tags.

Good luck,

Leon

[James_K__Patrick]

Poifect!

[MergeThis]

You might also want to set up the Word AutoCorrect option for all your writers, such as typing P1end would insert EndcontentforProduct1. Typos, such as in your posting (EndcontnetforProduct1) would obviously render your find/replace ineffective.

Good luck,

Leon

[James_K__Patrick]

Already in place.

[James_K__Patrick]

Peter,

Yes, multiple authors other than myself.

I figured manual tags was the way to go...just hoping for something easier.

Thanks,

Patrick