Can a Indesign Book be utilized by Robohelp

Report · Jan 17, 2023

Our company has two software packages that use Indesign for the manuals. We want to use the manuals as a basis for our help files in the software. Previously we used Doc-to-Help software. I have been brought on board and do not know Doc-to-Help or Robo-help but I do know Indesign and manage many publications through that software.

Report · Jan 17, 2023

There's no integration between the tools and there isn't any import function for Indesign files as far as I'm aware. From my limited knowledge, InDesign is very much about point perfect designs and page layouts, and I think it would be a frustrating experience given that web output (the main feature of Robohelp) isn't about pixel perfection and in fact varies depending on the browser you use to view the output.

If you want to transition your content to Robohelp, perhaps InDesign can output to Word or HTML or Framemaker? These file types can be imported into Robohelp. If any of these are possible you'd have to test which output produces the best result when imported into Robohelp. I expect you'll need to do a bit of tidy up either way, but one might be a bit cleaner than the other.

Report · Jan 25, 2023

Hey there. You can export InDesign documents to HTML and then add those pages to your RoboHelp project. The trick comes down to your use of InDesign styles. Essentially, you need to map InDesign styles to HTML tags. For example: If you are using Heading 1 in your document, you want it to map to H1. This will ensure you have the appropriate html tags after you export. InDesign will do a bunch of work for you (see this link Export to HTML in InDesign (adobe.com) However, it's on you to ensure the appropriate paragraph and character styles are used in your documents.

I used InDesign for many years (been an Adobe certified expert since 2006). Moving from print to web was a bit of a challenge for me. You have a lot of freedom in InDesign - web layouts are very different. If you have never used html or css, definitely take a class or two.