Adobe RoboHelp 7: Text-only Popups

by Kevin A. Siegel

 

When you create links in RoboHelp, one of the more common techniques is to create a link to topics that appear in an auto-sizing popup. This slick technique usually links to existing topics in your project. The content that appears in the popup window can be highly formatted (using Style Sheets) and contain images and multimedia effects. Of course, to create a pop-up link, you'd need to ensure the content exists in a topic. If you want to create a popup link to text that is not contained within a topic, you can create a Text-only Popup.

 

Because Text-only Popups do not link to project topics, you are limited to the amount of formatting you can control. In addition, Text-only Popups cannot contain images, audio or other multimedia effects.

 

One appropriate use of Text-only Popups would be for glossary terms, where you want the definition of a term to pop up when users click the term.

 

Insert a Text Only Popup in a Topic

1. Open a topic and select some text
   
   
2. Choose Insert > Text-only Popup
   
   A yellow box appears near the word you selected.
   
   
3. Type some text into the yellow box
   
   
   
   
4. Press [Ctrl] [W] to preview the topic
   
   
5. Click the link you just created to display the Text-only Popup

Change the Appearance of the Text-only Popup

1. Double-click the Text-only Popup you added to display the Text Popup Properties
   
   
2. Select any Font you like from the Font menu
   
   
3. Select any Text Color and Size you like
   
   
4. Select any Background color you like
   
   
   
   
5. Click OK

Want to learn more about Adobe RoboHelp 7? Click here.