Can I create a "Word Help" style help system using RH?

[Guest]

I'm using RH v9. Can I publish a "word help" style help system using RH? Is it a chm?  See the inserted screen shot. I would like my help system to look like this with the controls and search in a toolbar across the top and no ToC frame on the left.

[Peter Grainge]

It is a far cry from a CHM. It is a system that Microsoft threw an army of developers at. Chat nicely to yours and see what they will do.

Try using that system for a while and getting an answer to a tricky question. Time how long before you are screaming for access to a TOC.

I am opening help in Word 2010 by pressing F1 and getting a TOC. How are you accessing it? You could open your help without the TOC at context sensitive level without the TOC and let users access it when required.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[MM_Acton]

Pete said, "Try using that system for a while and getting an answer to a tricky question. Time how long before you are screaming for access to a TOC."

I have to agree with Pete. I find the Word help very frustrating. When I search for something, I often get a list of external articles, all of varying quality, which take me a long time to research. Or, even if I get a list of internal articles, it seems it would be much quicker to use a TOC or Index.

[Guest]

I probably should have noted that my concern is about having a more "modern" look for CHM than robohelp 9. I started using the conversion from webhelp to CHM using RH 10, and i like the improvement. Now i wish I had more control over the webhelp template. However; i wish i had more control over the webhelp template. Rather than semi-modifying one of the existing templates, how do i create my own webhelp template? I see that some people have posted a webhelp template to use, so i guess there must be some instructions somewhere about how to create one. Can you provide any direction?

[Peter Grainge]

I doubt you can create a skin from scratch. Every skin I have seen has been a modification of what is supplied. It's surprising what you can do with different images, fonts and colours.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge