Adobe RoboHelp 8: Word Conversion Settings During Import

by Kevin A. Siegel

Last week I talked about how importing Word documents into RoboHelp 8 offers far more options than ever before. During that article, I promised that this week I'd dive a little deeper into the dialog boxes you'll encounter during the import process. So here goes...

 

After choosing File > Import > Word Document and opening the document, you are presented with the Content Settings dialog box. I know it's the first dialog you'll see, but I want to cover that next week since most RoboHelp authors do not take advantage of the options presented here (a shame, but I'll get into that next week).

 

By clicking the Next button, you'll end up on the screen that will occupy our time this week: the Import dialog box. This screen will give you access to options that control how the Word document will be formatted as it is imported into RoboHelp.

 

Click the Edit button to the right of the words Word Document: Edit conversion settings for Word documents.

 

 

The Word document will be scanned and the Conversion Settings dialog box will appear.

 

Map Word Styles to RoboHelp Styles

1. From the Word Document Settings area, double-click Paragraph to open the Paragraph group
   
   
2. From the Word Document Settings area, select
   Heading 1
   
   
3. From the RoboHelp Style drop-down menu, select
   Heading 1
   
   When the Word document is imported, the Heading 1 style used in Word will be assigned to use a style of the same name in the RoboHelp project.
   
   
4. From the Word Document Settings area, select Normal
   
   
5. From the RoboHelp Style area, ensure [Source] is selected
   
   By selecting Source, the Normal style used in the Word document will be retained and used in the imported RoboHelp topics.
   

Control the Pagination during import

 

1. From the Word Document Settings area, select
   Heading 1
   
2. Select Pagination from the list of options in the middle of the dialog box
   
   
   
   By selecting Pagination for the Heading 1 style, RoboHelp will create a new topic every time it sees that Heading 1 was used in the Word document.
   
   
3. Click OK
   
   
4. Click Finish

And that's it. After clicking Finish, you'll see that your Word document has been split into topics based on how many times the Heading 1 style was used in the Word document. 

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Comments

[Lee Hume]

I'm importing a document with tracked changes. How will RoboHelp deal with this? Should I accept the changes prior to the import or can I import the file as-is? It's a 300+ page document and I would rather not duplicate the changes on the RoboHelp side after the import. Thank you.

[Ouida Dickinson]

I'm switching from MicroSoft Help application to RoboHelp (NOT HTML) and using RoboHelp 8 since my customer has Vista. I purchased a converter to convert the CPPMHelp.chm file to CPPMHelp.doc. The Word document CPPMHelp.doc contains all the hyperlinks that were created in the MicroSoft Help Workshop application. When I import the document the LINKS/JUMPS are lost. I've logged a problem with RoboHelp support but so far no response. All the RoboHelp documentation that I can find discusses this topic for HTML but not for the Windows version of RoboHelp. HELP!