RoboHelp 2019 – Update 1 (September 2018)

This blog post was co-authored with Amitoj Singh, product manager for Adobe FrameMaker.

Over the past few weeks, we have been receiving feedback on the new re-imagined RoboHelp (2019 release) from our customers and partners. We have been actively listening to their feedback and incorporating the same in RoboHelp. We are pleased to announce the availability of Update 1 for RoboHelp 2019 and would like to thank all those who contributed in reporting these issues and helping us improve the product. We have also tried to address some of the gaps in the product which were reported in RoboHelp forums.

Please continue to send us your feedback. We’re listening and would continue to improve the product as we go along at a much faster pace.

The detailed release notes are available here.

In this post:

What’s new and better

Following is the list of areas where most enhancements and bug fixes have been undertaken as part of Update 1. These have been clubbed under buckets such as Application, Authoring, Publishing, and Published Output.

Application

  1. Access Output and Author views in a single screen. In the first RoboHelp 2019 release, Author and Output views opened as two separate windows. Now, Author and Output views are merged and accessible through respective tabs in the standard toolbar in RoboHelp workspace.
  2. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Author Panel
  3. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Output Presets Panel

Authoring

  1. Work with an enhanced index. You can now cross-reference an index keyword or a subkeyword to another keyword and publish the cross-references. You can also add variables while creating or editing index keywords. And when you upgrade your RoboHelp 2019 Classic or older RoboHelp project, your cross-references are also migrated.
  2. Learn more about index keywords in the RoboHelp User Guide.
  3. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Index Keywords
  4. TOC and Glossary panels now support drill-down view so that one TOC/Glossary could be viewed in one at a time.
  5. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Glossary drill-down
  6. Toggle the display of paragraph markers (¶). In your open topic, you can now toggle the display of paragraph markers.
  7. Work with an enhanced expanding and drop-down text. You can now collapse or expand an individual or all the expanding/drop-down texts in your topic in Author view and topic preview. You can also toggle the display of the expanding/drop-down text boundary.
  8. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Topic Authoring – Show Paragraph Markers (¶)
  9. Support for Topic TOCs. You can now insert, edit, or delete a Topic TOC in topics (also known as “Mini TOC”) in topics and master pages.
  10. Locate a topic in a TOC from the Contents panel. You can now use the context menu in the Contents panel to view all the TOCs linked to a topic and locate the topic in a specific TOC.
  11. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Authoring – Locate a Topic in the TOC
  12. During the upgrade, bugs around multi-level list handling and related links have been fixed.
  13. Word auto-mapping issues with H1–H6 has also been resolved.
  14. Spaces in topic filenames are converted to underscores. When you add a topic in your project and type the topic name, RoboHelp automatically converts the spaces in the filename to underscores if the setting Use underscores in file names is activated. You can change this setting if necessary.
  15. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Application Settings – Spaces vs Underscores in file names

Publishing Settings

  1. Automatic upgradation of skins. When you upgrade your RoboHelp Classic project to RoboHelp (2019 release) application, all Responsive HTML5 skins are automatically upgraded. If skins are customized outside the RoboHelp Classic skin editor, use the Layout tab of the Skin Components panel in RoboHelp 2019 to add a custom JavaScript and CSS.
  2. With project upgrade, any responsive HTML5 skins and their customization would be upgraded to the new RoboHelp 2019 format.
  3. Work with language-specific labels. You can now edit and delete language-specific labels and undo or redo the edits. You can also export language-wise labels as XML for localization, and import a translated copy for a specific language.
  4. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Output Presets – Labels Editor
  5. Work with breadcrumbs. You can now insert and edit breadcrumbs in topics and master pages.
  6. Master pages. You can now access master pages through the Author toolbar in Author view instead of Output view.
  7. You can also apply a master page to a topic during topic creation. The topic preview also displays the master page applied to the topic.
  8. Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Master Pages
  9. Work with browse sequences. You can now add, edit, and delete browse sequences. In a browse sequence, you can drag-and-drop topics from the Contents panel and TOC, change the sequence of topics, and delete topics.
  10. Screenshot of Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) – Update 1 – Browse Sequence Editor
  11. Cancel the generation of an output preset. You can now cancel output generation from both the Quick Generate and Presets panel.

Published Output

  1. With CHM output, handling of browse sequence and glossary is fixed.
  2. Merge project support for Responsive HTML5 and WebHelp.
  3. In the published output, variables are now supported in Index keywords as well as cross-reference support in the index.
  4. Index keywords can be used as well for searching, and the relevant topic would be shown.

How to get Update 1 of RoboHelp 2019 release

The best way to update the RoboHelp 2019 application is to click on Help → Updates to download the latest patch. You could also download the same from here.

Found a bug? Want to suggest an improvement? Let us know!

There’s a channel for that: We call it “Adobe Tracker.” Adobe Tracker is your place to go when you find a bug and want to report it to us so that we can fix it in the next update/release. You can also file in your feature requests, ideas, requests for improvements. It’s very easy to do and the reports go directly into our system, and our product managers, engineers, and support people have direct access to it.

You can report a bug here.