Adobe RoboHelp 8: Creating Multiple Topics From One Word Document

by Kevin Siegel

One of the most common ways to add new content to a RoboHelp project is by importing a Word document via File > Import > Word Document. If the Word document contains a TOC, Headers, Footers or Index, they will import nicely into RoboHelp. However, during the import process, it's highly likely that you will end up with one, large topic in RoboHelp instead of several small ones. So how do you instruct RoboHelp to create several topics out of the one Word document? Read on...

 

During the import process you will be working within an Import dialog box. The dialog box gives you access to options that control how the Word document will be formatted as it is imported into RoboHelp. All you need to do is click the Edit button you will see to the right of Word Document: Edit conversion settings for Word documents.

 

 

After clicking the Edit button, your Word document will be scanned and the Conversion Settings dialog box will appear. This is where you can control which paragraphs in the Word document will be paginated into new topics.

 

From the Word Document Settings area, select the style or styles that you used in the Word document to be used as new topics. For instance, Heading 1 is typically used in Word to designate main sections in the document. In that case, you would select Heading 1 from the list of Word styles.

 

Next, select Pagination from the list of options in the middle of the dialog box. 

 

 

By selecting Pagination for specific Word styles, RoboHelp will create a new topic every time it sees that Heading 1 was used in the Word document.

 

After that, all you'd need to do is click the OK button and then the Finish button and the Word document will be imported into RoboHelp. Once the import process is complete, you will find your new topics on RoboHelp's Topic List pod.

 

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Comments

[Scot]

Thank you!

I knew this was possible, but overlooked that little checkbox...again and again and again....

[Ruso]

Although it is mentioned in the Adobe Help that it is possible to divide the Word Documents into topics, how to do it is missing.

Thanks a lot for sharing.