How to Create a RoboHelp Project — A Beginner’s Tutorial

A. Introduction

This Adobe RoboHelp HTML 10 tutorial shows the basic steps required to create a RoboHelp project. (Robohelp comes in two flavors: Robohelp for Word, and Robohelp HTML). In this tutorial, we will use RoboHelp 8 HTML and generate a  help file, starting from a “Blank Project”.

NOTE: Robohelp is a deep program with too many functions and capabilities to count here. This Quick Start Tutorial barely covers 10% of everything you can do with RoboHelp.

The general steps are:

• Open the application and create a new project
• Create Help Topic
• Create Link
• Create  Table of Contents (TOC)
• Create Index
• Create Glossary

B. Opening the Application and Creating a new Project

1. Select RoboHelp 10 from the Start menu or click the desktop icon to launch the application.
RoboHelp 10 HTML Starter screen appears:

2. Click the “(Create New) Blank Project” option to display the New Project Wizard dialog box:

3. Enter a TITLE for the help project and a NAME for the project file.  Note: In RoboHelp, each new Help file is created in the form of a project. The same project can be used to generate Help files in different formats.

4. Browse and find the location (path) where the project file will be stored.

5. Select a language from the Language drop-down menu. English is the default.

6. Click Finish to display the Robohelp’s Integrated  Explorer Screen, displaying the First Topic created by default:

Note that the panes are dynamically displayed, depending on the options you select from the VIEW menu. For example, in the lower-left corner of your screen, you can display both the Single-Source Layouts list and the Conditional Build Tags, depending on what you need.  Similarly, in the lower-right corner, you can display both the Topics List and the Output View when you generate the final output file.

RH’s default workspace has 4 panes, integrated within a single frame:  Project Set-Up Pane, Conditional Text (or Single-Sourcing Layout) pane, Topic Edit pane, and the Output View (or Topic List) pane at the bottom.
NOTE: Conditional Text is an important single-sourcing functionality that you cannot find in Robohelp for Word.

C. Create Content for The Default Help Topic

1. Start typing your content for the default First Topic in the upper-right pane, just like you would when you are creating a normal text document. Use the formatting buttons in the tool bar to edit your text anyway you like.

2. To insert images, select Insert > Images from the menu bar, or click the Insert Image button on the tool bar.

D. Create a New Help Topic

1. Select File  > New > Topic from the menu bar or click the Create a New Topic button (question mark on a blank page) in the Project Manager pane to display the New Topic dialog box:

2. Enter a Topic Title, File Name, Master Page (if you’re applying a page template), select a Language from the drop-down list, enter Keywords for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

3. Select the Exclude From Search check-box if you do NOT want this topic to show up in any searches.

4. Click OK to have the new topic displayed in the Topic List pane at the bottom.

5. Double click any topic in the Topic List to display it in the Topic Edit pane. Start editing the way you’d normally edit any text.

Continue creating and populating new topics by following the same steps above. All topics will be listed in Topic List pane at the bottom as well as the Project List pane on the upper left pane.

E. Create a Link

1. Select the text you’d like to link in any topic.

2. Click Insert > Hyperlink Popup from the menu or click the Insert Hyperlink button on the tool bar to display the Insert Hyperlink dialog box:

3. Enter the URL or link destination address, or select it from the drop-down list.

4. Select the appropriate display option and a screen tip text if you like.

5. Select the destination file to which you are linking.

6. Click OK to create the hyperlink.

F. Generate the Help File

To generate a copy of your help file and view it inside your web browser click the Generate Primary Layout button (Yellow Question mark) on the  tool bar:

You can accomplish the same by selecting File > Generate > Primary Layout from the menu bar.