Migrating from AuthorIt to RoboHelp

[amie68]

I plan to move a help system from AuthorIt 6.51 to RoboHelp 2020. Anyone have experience migrating files from AuthorIt? Any tips, advice, etc.?

[Peter Grainge]

I don't have personal experience but I think the very different structure of the two tools makes it a difficult process. The link below gives you a more targetted search of Adobe's forums than using the Search box on the RoboHelp forum. The latter will include results from other forums.

Search - Adobe Support Community

Search on "author-it" with the quotes.

One method I seem to recall is to get Author-it to generate a CHM and then import that into RoboHelp. The problem with that is the Reverse Engineering (grainge.org) method described on my site only works in Classic versions of RoboHelp. Your 2020 subscription allows you to install 2019 as well and that includes the last Classic version.

Your route would be to reverse engineer the CHM into 2019 Classic, then in 2020 you would use the Upgrade Project link on the Starter Screen.

I would not expect the whole process to be without some issues.

I believe there is also a way of doing it with XML but I have no knowledge of how that is done. It should be as simple as exporting XML from Author-it which I believe is an option and then importing that. I doubt it is that easy though. It seems too good to be true.

Please do come back and let us know how you get on as it will help anyone with this same task in the future.

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

[amie68]

Thanks for the suggestions @Peter Grainge. I had no idea how to start, and this gives me a point of reference to begin this task. This is a project that will happen - have to get this help file into RH for ongoing upkeep - so I will have some hands on experience with this soon. I'll be sure to document and put that info here for others who may travel this path in the future.

[Amebr]

Another option might be if you can output to Word and import the Word doc. 

[Peter Grainge]

Word could be a good alternative but before you import make sure Author-it creates the output with H1, H2 etc styles. Another authoring tool applies inline styling so you don't have proper styles to break topics on and map to your CSS.

________________________________________________________

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