Excluding a topic from search but still keep in TOC

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
August 29, 2025
2 replies
159 views

I am using RoboHelp version 2022.4.179 and I am trying to exclude topics from the search but still include it in the table of contents. I have gone through each topic and selected "Exclude this topic from search" but after generating the HTML output, and going to search a keyword, the topics are still listed in the search.

How would I make sure that the topics I have selected to not be included in the search won't show up while still being in the TOC if someone needs to reference it?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

A quick test suggests that the Exclude From Search does not work in CHMs and that looks to be what you are generating.

CHM's are an old technology that Microsoft last updated in 2004 and no longer support.

As to ranking, you can try https://community.adobe.com/t5/robohelp-discussions/search-anomalies/m-p/11748980#M135360 but I am dubious that will work in CHMs.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Use menu (bottom right) to mark as Best Answer or to Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

I totally missed that @joey_9864 was creating a CHM - I read "generating the HTML output" & went immediately to HTML5.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

There is a fix in patch 6 for search, but I don't know if it applies to your circumstance. Normally, you would hide a topic in both the TOC and from Search to keep it from being discovered; you seem to want people to be able to find it in the TOC but not via Search. I don't know if it [that "Exclude from search" field] was built that way.

J

joey_9864Author

Participant

Is there a way that I could change the ranking in the search so that the topics I want to exclude from the search wouldn't be so high up on the list?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded