Converting Word styles to RoboHelp styles

You can select the cascading style sheet (CSS) that RoboHelp uses to map Word styles to RoboHelp styles. RoboHelp saves all the style conversion settings in this CSS file. By default, RoboHelp uses the RHStyleMapping.css file for your project.

You can also use a custom CSS for your project. You can later edit the styles either in RoboHelp or in an external CSS editing application, such as Adobe Dreamweaver®. You can define how the Word styles convert to RoboHelp styles at the project level. All Word style definitions in the Word document appear in the mapping dialog box, irrespective of whether they are used in the document.

Select CSS for style mapping

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab of the Project Settings dialog box, do one of the following:

    • Select the CSS file from the CSS For Style Mapping menu. RoboHelp lists CSS files in the root folder of your project, from which you can select a CSS file.

    • Select Browse CSS from the CSS For Style Mapping menu, and select the CSS file that you want to use. Use this option to specify a custom CSS for your project. When you select this option, RoboHelp copies the selected CSS file into the root folder of your project, and uses the selected CSS for style mapping.

Note: You can edit the CSS file you want to use for style mapping. The Edit With option lets you select an editor from a predefined list, which includes RoboHelp CSS Editor and other registered CSS editors.

Automap styles

RoboHelp provides a quick option to map paragraph, character, and table styles in the Word files to the corresponding styles in the CSS selected for style mapping. The style names in the Word files and the CSS should be same for automap to work.

  1. Select File > Project Settings.

  2. Click the Import tab of the Project Settings dialog box. Do one of the following:

    • Select the CSS file from the CSS For Style Mapping menu.

    • Click Add next to the CSS for Style Mapping pop-up menu, and select a CSS file.

      Use this option to specify a custom CSS for the project. When you select this option, RoboHelp copies the selected CSS file into the root folder of the project, and uses the selected CSS for style mapping.

  3. To edit conversion settings for Word documents, click Edit.

  4. In the Paragraph tab, select Automap Paragraph Styles.

  5. In the Character tab, select Automap Character Styles.

  6. In the Table tab, select Automap Table Styles.

Convert Word paragraph styles to RoboHelp styles

By default, RoboHelp converts all Word styles to CSS, thus retaining the appearance and behavior of the Word styles in the RoboHelp project. If you want to ensure consistency of your online Help projects, you can map the Word styles to RoboHelp styles and edit them.

If the style names in the style sheet selected for style mapping match RoboHelp style names, follow the steps described in Automap styles.

To manually map the styles, follow these steps:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab of the Project Settings dialog box, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. In the Conversion Settings dialog box, select the Word style from the Paragraph group.

  4. From the RoboHelp Style pop-up menu, select the RoboHelp style that you want to map to the Word style. To retain the appearance of Word text in your online Help format, select [Source].

  5. Select the properties for the selected Word style. To edit the selected RoboHelp style, click Edit Style.

    To mark a style for glossary

    • Select Glossary Definition Style to mark the style to consider for the glossary definition.

    • Select Glossary Term to mark the style to consider for the glossary term.

      Note: Follow Glossary Definition Style with Glossary Term Style for a complete a Glossary Term Definition pair. RoboHelp uses the terms marked with the selected styles, to create a Glossary.

    • To set up pagination: Select Pagination (Split into topics based on this style) to create a Help topic at each occurrence of the selected Word paragraph style. For example, if you select Heading 1 and Pagination (Split into topics based on this style), RoboHelp starts a new topic at every instance of Heading 1. For more information on Pagination, see Set pagination for online Help topics

    • Using a user-defined HTML tag: Select or enter a user-defined HTML tag for the selected paragraph style.

      For example:

      A paragraph with style ParaStyleOne is imported in RoboHelp as <p class=ParaStyleOne> Paragraph Text </p>.

      Specifying this string as Pre for the style ParaStyleOne causes RoboHelp to import the paragraphs with the style ParaStyleOne as <pre> Paragraph Text </pre>.

Convert Word character styles to RoboHelp styles

You can map the Word character formats to character styles in RoboHelp. You can also edit the styles in RoboHelp.

If the style names in the style sheet selected for style mapping match RoboHelp style names, follow the steps described in Automap styles.

To manually map the styles, follow these steps:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab of the Project Settings dialog box, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. In the Conversion Settings dialog box, select the Character group.

  4. Select the Word character style from the left pane of the Conversion Settings dialog box.

  5. Select the RoboHelp character style from the pop-up menu. Optionally, you can do the following:

    • To import the Word character style, select [Source] from the pop-up menu.

    • To edit the character style in RoboHelp, click Edit Style.

List mapping

You can map Word lists to RoboHelp lists (multilevel lists) or HTML lists (basic ordered and unordered lists) in RoboHelp. If you have defined lists as paragraph styles in RoboHelp, you can map these list styles in RoboHelp. If you do not select a style mapping option for a list, it is converted to text without list properties.
  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. In the Conversion Settings dialog box, select the Other Settings group.

  4. Do one of the following:

    • To convert the Word list styles to RoboHelp lists, select RoboHelp List from the Convert Word List To pop-up menu.

    • To convert the Word list styles to HTML lists, select HTML List from the Convert Word List To pop-up menu.

Create custom HTML tags

You can define or apply a custom HTML tag instead of the standard <p> tag for paragraph styles in the HTML output for the formats that you import from a Word document. You can define separate HTML tags for each format in the Word document.

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. In the Conversion Settings dialog box, select a Word paragraph style, and then select User Defined HTML Tag option.

  4. Type the name of the custom HTML tag or select an existing tag to use instead of the default HTML tag.

Convert Word table styles to RoboHelp table styles

You can map Word table styles to RoboHelp table styles. Alternatively, you can import the table styles as inline formatting from the Word document. Optionally, you can edit the converted table styles in RoboHelp.

If the style names in the style sheet selected for style mapping match RoboHelp style names, follow the steps described in Automap styles.

To manually map the styles, follow these steps:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. Select the Word table style from the left pane of the Conversion Settings dialog box.

  4. Select the RoboHelp table style from the pop-up menu. Optionally, to edit the table style in RoboHelp, click Edit Style.

Convert Word references to hyperlinks

RoboHelp can convert the cross-references in the Word documents. These references appear as hyperlinks in the generated Help topics.
  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select File > Import > Word Document.

    • Select File > Link > Word Document.

    • Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. In the Conversion Settings group, select Other Settings, and then select Convert References To Hyperlinks.

Create RoboHelp styles from inline formatting

Even though it’s best to avoid inline formatting in your Word documents, and apply defined paragraph and character styles, you can link and import Word documents to RoboHelp. You can also create RoboHelp styles from inline formatting in your Word documents. Such styles are added to the project CSS.

  1. Select File > Project Settings.

  2. In the Import tab, click Edit under Word Document.

  3. In the Conversion Settings dialog box, select Other Settings and then select Auto-Create CSS Styles From Inline Formatting.