eHelp RoboHelp

Creating New Documents

RoboHelp stores every topic of a help project in a Word document. RoboHelp displays a list of all of the documents in a help project on the Project tab, in the Topics folder.

While you can create every topic of a help project in a single document, you really shouldn't for several reasons. First, Word doesn't handle big documents very well. The larger a Word document becomes, the more likely it becomes that the document will become corrupt and you will lose your work. Second, the more topics you put into a single document, the more difficult it becomes to manage that document. Browsing becomes nearly impossible and you end up having to scroll through long lists of topics when you begin using some of the other RoboHelp features. The best practice, in my opinion, is to group like topics together in their own documents. For example, if you are creating a help project that has tutorials, reference and troubleshooting, you should create a separate document for tutorials, reference and troubleshooting. That said, too many documents can also be a hassle. As always, you will have to decide how to manage topics and documents based on your needs, your working style, your department's guidelines and some common sense.

To create a new document in RoboHelp:

In RoboHelp Explorer, select the Project tab.
Double-click the Topics folder.
The Topics folder expands to reveal several sub-folders and the project's current documents (ending in the .doc file extension). This is an optional step, but expanding this folder gives you a chance to see if and when RoboHelp adds the new document to your project.
Right-click the Topics folder, and select New > Document....
The New Document dialog box appears.
Enter a name for the document in the File Name: field.

Tip

Use a descriptive name so that you, and others, can quickly figure out the kinds of topics located in the document, such as "Reference" if you are creating a reference guide.
Click OK.
Word creates a new document using the name you entered in the New Document dialog box. The file also appears in the Topics folder in RoboHelp Explorer.
In Word, attach any templates you need to attach.
This is an optional step that you should do if your department is using specific templates for help projects. Click here for instructions on attaching templates in a Word document.

All you have right now is a blank document. If you save the document now and close it, the next time you try to open the document in RoboHelp Explorer, you will get the Document Properties dialog box and the file will not open in Word. To avoid this, you can create a topic in the document now. While you can do this at any time, I always create a topic when I first create a document.
Create a new topic in your new document.
Click here for instructions on creating a new topic in RoboHelp.
Save your document using the save button in RoboHelp Explorer.

When you save your document with a topic, a + appears to the left of the document icon in RoboHelp Explorer. This indicates that the document has topics in it. You can click the + to expand a tree that reveals all of the topics in the document. If no + appears beside the document icon, that document contains no topics.