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Why can't RoboHelp output to inDesign?

Community Beginner ,
Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017

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I was wondering if there are any plans to have RoboHelp out to InDesign?, I always think that products in the same family should easily talk to each other.

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LEGEND , Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017

Hi there

Only Adobe knows for certain what any plans would be for this. I'm unaware of any moves to do it.

I'm curious as to what one would hope to gain if such an option existed? What would you hope to achieve?

Cheers... Rick

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LEGEND ,
Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017

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Hi there

Only Adobe knows for certain what any plans would be for this. I'm unaware of any moves to do it.

I'm curious as to what one would hope to gain if such an option existed? What would you hope to achieve?

Cheers... Rick

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017

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Hi Rick,

In my current and previous experience, when creating documentation for a high-end or premium product there is a requirement to use In-Design for the final layout of the manuals to provide a richer design aesthetic that Microsoft Word cannot provide.

It seems silly to output from RoboHelp to Word or PDF only to get the graphic design to insert and layout in In Design. Using the RoboHelp structured authoring and review is very beneficial, just would like to see if we can output to an In-design template straight from RoboHelp.

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Contributor ,
Jan 17, 2017 Jan 17, 2017

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You can export XML from RoboHelp and then “Import XML” into InDesign. That may be worth an option investigating.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 17, 2017 Jan 17, 2017

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@luke - most people in that situation have just been authoring directly in InDesign - Adobe has been beefing it up over the years to handle more long-form content (that FrameMaker has traditionally handled better).

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LEGEND ,
Jan 17, 2017 Jan 17, 2017

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As far as integration goes, it's worth noting that Adobe acquired RoboHelp from macromedia. This means it wasn't always an Adobe product. As such, they are likely still discovering what folks may or may not need or want as far as integrations go.

For example, PDF output still goes through Microsoft Word first.

Note that I'm not an InDesign user. From what I've seen of it, it seems very fiddly and something likely used to create things like covers for magazines or whatnot. It doesn't strike me as a tool that would be used for publishing the type of content that is normally found in a help system. But that's just my own perception. I could be way off base in my understanding.

Cheers... Rick

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 17, 2017 Jan 17, 2017

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Hi Rick,

It is used by some companies that provide high-end user manuals, the ones that want a nice glossy finish to their manuals. This is quite common in Marine Electronics and Car Manufacturing. It would be great to have a tool that provides structured authoring, single sourcing etc that simply outputs to InDesign.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 17, 2017 Jan 17, 2017

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InDesign may eventually develop structured authoring, single sourcing like FM, but I suspect it's a long way off. You might explore authoring in Structured FM and output XML that InDesign could import (maybe - haven't played with ID for years).

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