How to create a 'jump' or hotspot to an external PDF?????

Report · Nov 08, 2007

I'm trying to create a link to allow the user to download a PDF and/or a Word document from within my Robohelp for Word (6) WebHelp project....but cannot find anyway to make it work in Robohelp...nor is it covered in the (ironically named) help file.

I can edit the file using notepad to enter a link but why purchase Robohelp if you can't create a simple hyperlink as you can in Word (that doesn't work either, Robohelp creates a pretty blue and dead bit of text)...??

Peter (anyone)- have you round a way to make this work?

Thanks,
Richard

Report · Nov 08, 2007

Hi Richard

Sure you can create a link like this. And very easily.

1. Select the text your user will click
2. Click Insert > Hyperlink and you see the Hyperlink dialog
3. In the Hyperlink dialog, you see a drop down arrow button immediately to the left of the field where your URL will appear. Click this button.
4. Choose File... from the list and browse to the file.

That get you closer?

Cheers... Rick

Report · Nov 08, 2007

Thanks Rick,

It sounds like you're using Robohelp HTML; I can see what you're seeing when I create a link but that doesn't work in Robohelp for Word (which is what my end user is using). When I try to insert a hyperlink in RHW I have to use the hyperlink command from Word and when RHW compiles the link is dead...and Notepad shows no link present in the compile html file.

Make sense?

Report · Nov 08, 2007

Hi again

Ahhh, sorry about that. I somehow totally spaced off the fact that you are using RoboHelp for Word! Mea culpa and a thousand apologies!

I'll have to defer to someone that regularly uses RoboHelp for Word. I used to be very well versed in it. But since moving to RoboHelp HTML, it's mostly a distant memory that fades more each day.

Cheers... Rick

Report · Nov 08, 2007

I should note that using the RHW 'Insert Help Hotspot' only allows hyperlinks to 'topics' and not to files (which, if true, is amazingly shortsighted). All the 'Action Type's available point to either topics or other compiled help projects...it appears you cannot link to something as simple as a PDF or other file.

Thanks,
Richard

Report · Nov 08, 2007

Thanks Rick; it appears from Google searching and painful exploration of the 'help' file in RHW that this is a sadly overlooked topic....which is truly amazing...am I the only person writing a RHW help system that would like to allow a user to download and print a PDF? That seems unlikely but appears to be the truth. RHW will allow topic jumps and links to HTML but not to a document? Amazing!

Report · Nov 09, 2007

Hello mrpc9886,
no, you aren't the only person writing a RHW help system that would like to allow a user to download and print a PDF. I had the same problem, too (RoboHelp for Word X5.0.1, build 606). My solution was an selfwritten redirect html page:

1. Open a new document in your text editor.
2. Type (or copy) the following lines:

<html>
<head>
<title>openpdf</title>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=pdf.pdf">
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

3. Save this file as openpdf.htm in your project folder.
4. Open your RHWord project and write the link text and mark it.
5. Use CTRL + J to insert a hotspot link (Action type: HTML Jump)
6. Select openpdf.htm in the next dialog and the option "Display in browser"
7. Click OK.
8. Copy the file pdf.pdf to the publish folder of your webhelp.

The file pdf.pdf has to be in the publish folder of the webhelp (with CHM help it doesn't work).

Hope this helps
Siggi4711

Report · Nov 09, 2007

Hi mrpc9886

I really like Siggi4711's approach here and it's worth investigating. I can't believe I didn't think to suggest it because I used the very same approach with RoboHelp HTML. Here's my own opinion why it's good.

In a past life, I used to be a web developer for a division of the company I worked for. We regularly created links to Word documents and PDF content. With a regular hyperlink that simply pointed to the files, our users often thought the link was broken. This is because linking to these types of files will often take an inordinate amount of time. Even on a fast intranet. So we discovered that if we created what I called a "DocFetch" page, (a redirect page similar to what was suggested) that I could time the page for 1 second before the redirect occurred. Then I plopped some text and an animated computer typing on its own keyboard that alerted the user to "Please wait. Opening file...".

This gave the user immediate feedback that the link did indeed work, but that the process may take a bit to complete. The complaints that the links were "broken", stopped flowing in.

Cheers all... Rick

Report · Nov 09, 2007

You guys rock!

I was sitting in a meeting just a bit ago talking through the issue with the user (who is deathly afraid of RHH and just a while ago was deathly afraid of RHW, sigh) and as I was going over the 'jump' options I wondered if it would be possible to do something with the HTML option...so thank you both for this!

Regards,
Richard