RoboHelp 2019 – Update 5 (February 2019)
This blog post was co-authored with Amitoj Singh, Product Manager for Adobe Technical Communication tools at Adobe.
Just about four weeks ago we have rolled out Update 4 for RoboHelp 2019. Today we release Update 5! Let us guide you through the what’s new and better in RoboHelp 2019 with Update 5 in this blog post. But before we go into it, here is a list of our previous blogs and fixed issues for the previous four updates for RoboHelp 2019.
As always, the detailed release notes for all updates are available here.
In this post:
- What’s new and better
- Other enhancements
- Bug fixes
- How to get the update
- Report a bug, file in a feature request
What’s new and better
New: Update properties for multiple files
It is a very popular feature in RoboHelp Classic and a great productivity booster: The possibility to make changes to multiple topics in your project. Change the status and other topic properties for multiple topics in one go, delete multiple files at once or select and move multiple files and folders around in the project hierarchy.
With RoboHelp 2019 Update 5, we have implemented this in the new RoboHelp 2019 as well. Now you can select multiple files in the Contents panel and Table of Content panels, change their properties or drag & drop them in the hierarchy of your project.
New: Publish to SharePoint Online as ASPX
Many companies are using Microsoft SharePoint Online to share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and seamlessly collaborate across the organization. With RoboHelp 2019, Update 5, you can now easily publish your content to SharePoint Online in the native ASPX format. We have added a new Publish option for this in Output Presets.
New: Associate project files with external applications
You can associate external applications with a file type for opening and editing. From RoboHelp, you can double-click a file or right-click it and choose Edit from the context menu to open it in the associated application.
Choose Edit → Preferences from the RoboHelp 2019 main menu and select File Association to map file types to applications installed on your machine.
Enhanced: Topic list
When working on large documentation projects with many topics, it can become challenging to keep track of the individual topic properties and their status. Which topic is in authoring? Which topic is in review, and which topic has already been approved? Who was or is working on which topic?
With Update 5 for RoboHelp 2019, we have added a lot of functionalities to make managing your topics easier:
- The topic list header row is now fixed and always visible at the top while scrolling through a long topic list.
- Now you can resize all columns in the topic list.
- The topic list is “live” now. Changes you make in the project are automatically reflected in the topic list, without having to refresh the list manually.
- You can clear all filters in one go with the new Reset Filters button:
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- We have added two new options for Master Page usage and See Also.
- You can launch the Topic List from the Reports panel or from the View→Topic List. It is removed from the Author toolbar.
Easily work by resizing column width and changes are live in the topic list (make a change in the project and it is immediately reflected in Topic list).
For more information, see Topic List in Reports in RoboHelp.
Enhanced: Spell checker
The spell checker is now available through the F7 key and the Edit → Spell Check menu option. You can see indicators of misspelled words and implement, ignore, or add suggestions to your personal dictionary.
New: Style it with rounded borders and prefixes
In Update 5 for RoboHelp 2019, we have made it easy to style your elements with rounded borders and added new styling options for the prefix in a list and content in a list.
New: Modularize your Style Sheets
This one is for the power users and CSS expert among you: If your CSS file gets very complex, you might want to split it up into multiple CSS files with dedicated CSS files for different elements. With Update 5 for RoboHelp 2019, you can now do this. Now you can set up a “Master CSS” file (let’s say “master.css”) which then imports multiple other CSS files. In the topics themselves, you just need to reference the Master CSS file and RoboHelp will automatically load all the depending “Child CSS” files. During publishing, RoboHelp will also take care fo the referenced CSS files and publish them to your output location – no need to manually copy them.
@charset "utf-8";
/* import css modules*/
@import url(page-structure.css);
@import url(navigation.css);
@import url(headings.css);
@import url(body.css);
@import url(tables.css);
@import url(other.css);
body {
background-color: #ffffff;
color: black;
font-family: "Arial", sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
Other enhancements
Apart from the above enhancements, there have been numerous other enhancements such as:
- Microsoft Word Document import – We have made numerous enhancements in the Microsoft Word Import filter for better support of multi-level lists (nested lists), import of tables and many others.
- PDF Output – Publishing to PDF did not work for you because of those nasty broken links in your content? We have enhanced this and now a PDF will be generated, even if you have “broken” links that you might be not able to fix or just do not want to fix for a reason. We have also made a lot of enhancements in areas such as header and footer on a page and numberings.
- Import HTML files – You can now import HTML files and associated assets with File→Import → HTML Topic.
- Rename a file or folder from contents panel – You can rename a folder in the Contents panel by just right-clicking it and choose Rename. With Update 5, you can now also just select a file or folder in the Contents panel and press F2. This will open the Rename File dialog and you can simply type in the new name and hit Return or click OK.
- You can now duplicate a skin by right-clicking on it and choose Duplicate.
Bug Fixes
In addition to all of the above, we also fixed a lot of smaller glitches. In total, we have fixed 21 of them in the last four weeks. Here is a small selection of them:
- Topics with .html file name extension from RoboHelp Classic projects did do not upgrade properly: Fixed
- Some formats of field variables from RoboHelp Classic projects were not upgraded properly: Fixed
- Not all project files were added to SharePoint: Fixed
- In certain scenarios, it was not possible to check in a modified file back to SharePoint: Fixed
- The project title was not updated automatically in the Application title bar if you changed it in the Project Settings: Fixed
- End of paragraph marker (¶) was not displayed in list items: Fixed
- Sometimes it was not possible to switch back to Author view after correcting an error in Source Code view: Fixed
- Context-sensitive help map numbers specified in hexadecimal format were not upgrading properly: Fixed
- Drag-and-drop of Table Of Contents had some flaws and folders expanded too fast: Fixed
- If you selected all text in a table row, the whole row was deleted instead of just making the table cells in this row empty: Fixed .
- In certain scenarios, the context-sensitive help did not work in the generated CHM file: Fixed
You can find the full list of all 21 bug fixes in Update 5 here.
How to get Update 5 of RoboHelp 2019 release
The best way to update Adobe RoboHelp 2019 is to click on Help → Updates to download and install the latest patch. You can also download the installer directly from the RoboHelp Service Releases page.
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.